Long before Hannah Waddingham became known to millions as Rebecca Welton, the imposing yet warm-hearted club owner on Apple TV's Ted Lasso, she played one of Game of Thrones' most chilling and underappreciated villains. Waddingham has now revealed that a pivotal scene involving her character, Septa Unella, was originally written to include a sexual assault before producers changed course at the last minute, according to TVLine and AOL.com, both citing comments she made to Collider.
Waddingham appeared in eight episodes of Game of Thrones across Seasons 5 and 6 as Septa Unella, the zealous religious figure who became infamous for psychologically torturing Cersei Lannister, played by Lena Headey. Unella is best remembered for marching behind a naked, shorn Cersei through the streets of King's Landing while ringing a bell and repeatedly shouting the word Shame, a scene that remains one of the show's most talked-about moments. As TVLine and AOL.com note, Unella operated within the storyline where the High Sparrow, played by Jonathan Pryce, and the Faith of the Seven had seized control of King's Landing.
Cersei eventually exacted her revenge in the Season 6 finale, detonating wildfire beneath the Sept of Baelor and killing the High Sparrow along with much of the religious movement that had humiliated her. But Unella, who was not present for that explosion, met a separate and arguably worse fate. In her final scene, Cersei has Unella chained in the same dungeon where she herself had once been imprisoned, waterboarding her with wine while mocking her earlier chants of Shame. As Cersei exits, the reanimated Gregor Clegane, known as the Mountain, played by Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, enters the cell while Unella screams. The show never depicts what happens next, leaving her ultimate fate to the audience's imagination.
According to Waddingham's account to Collider, as reported by TVLine and AOL.com, that ambiguity was not the original plan. Waddingham said the scene was initially written to show Unella being raped by the Mountain. She said producers changed the scene at the last minute, while she was already traveling to the show's Belfast set, opting for waterboarding instead.
A Wetsuit Top And A Late Wardrobe Change
Waddingham described the abrupt shift in specific detail. She recalled being told she would need a wetsuit top for the dungeon scene, without initially understanding why, since the scene had been described to her differently beforehand. She said that upon arriving on set, she was put into the wetsuit top and questioned the wardrobe choice, only to be told the scene had been switched to waterboarding.
Waddingham connected the last-minute change to the intense backlash Game of Thrones received the previous season over the assault of Sansa Stark, played by Sophie Turner, by Ramsay Bolton. That Season 5 storyline drew widespread criticism from viewers and critics alike over its handling of sexual violence. Waddingham suggested that the volume of complaints directed at the show over the Sansa scene led producers to reconsider a similarly graphic moment for Unella, choosing instead to depict her final scene through waterboarding and implication rather than an explicit assault.
The waterboarding scene that ultimately aired still carries significant weight within the show's narrative, closing out the arc of a character whose cruelty toward Cersei had made her a target for retribution. By leaving the Mountain's actions offscreen, the show allowed audiences to draw their own conclusions about Unella's punishment, a choice that, according to Waddingham's account, emerged directly from the studio's reaction to the earlier controversy rather than from an original creative plan.
An Overlooked Villain In A Show Full Of Them
Despite the intensity of her role, Septa Unella is often left out of conversations about Game of Thrones' most memorable villains, a list typically dominated by characters like Ramsay Bolton, played by Iwan Rheon, and Joffrey Baratheon, played by Jack Gleeson. Yet as TVLine and AOL.com both point out, Unella's calculated cruelty toward Cersei, someone who had committed serious atrocities of her own, made her a uniquely unsettling figure within the series, one whose righteous fervor curdled into its own form of abuse.
Waddingham's performance helped cement Game of Thrones' reputation as one of HBO's most acclaimed original series, even as her character occupied a smaller, more specific corner of its sprawling narrative compared to leads like Cersei or Jon Snow. The Shame walk sequence in particular became one of the show's signature moments, frequently referenced and parodied well beyond the show's airing.
The contrast between Unella and Rebecca Welton, the character that introduced Waddingham to a much wider audience, could hardly be sharper. Ted Lasso, which debuted on Apple TV in 2020 during the pandemic and is now in its fourth season, cast Waddingham as the owner of a struggling London soccer club who initially wants to sabotage the team to spite her ex-husband before gradually growing to genuinely care about its success. That arc, built on warmth and redemption, stands in stark relief against Unella's zealotry and eventual gruesome comeuppance.
For viewers who came to know Waddingham primarily through her Emmy-nominated turn on Ted Lasso, her Game of Thrones role offers a reminder of the range she displayed years earlier, playing a character capable of real menace before she became one of television's most beloved authority figures. Her comments to Collider, as relayed by TVLine and AOL.com, also shed new light on how closely Game of Thrones' producers were monitoring audience reaction in real time, adjusting scenes even after cast members had already begun traveling to set.
Anyone affected by issues of sexual assault raised in this story can contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-4673 or visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network's website for support.
