As one of the few women in the cast of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Tanzyn Crawford stands out in the Game of Thrones spinoff. Her character, Tanselle, also makes a big impression on the show’s awkward hero, Dunk (Peter Claffey). Wandering around the camp that’s sprung up at the Ashford tournament, he happens to catch her performing with a puppet troupe and is instantly smitten.
Tanselle is eye-catching on her own, but the show she’s a part of is also rather arresting, involving costumes and intricately detailed props, including a fire-breathing dragon. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is set in a Westeros where actual dragons died out a few generations prior, after the events depicted in House of the Dragon. So the audience knows dragons once existed, but they’ve never actually seen one.
At a recent press day for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, io9 was part of a roundtable where Crawford was asked how the puppet shows we see in episodes one and two—and will see in future episodes—came together. The performances only get moments of screen time, but it still has the feel of a complete show that we’ve happened to catch a glimpse of, just as Dunk has.
“The choreography that we established [for] the puppet show, everybody worked out together,” Crawford said. “There were, I think, five or six people inside that dragon, controlling each wing and then the head and then the body and the tail. Everything was very large and very heavy. So that’s like—props to them. I feel like I’m getting the credit, but I didn’t do the puppet. [It’s] amazing what they did. They really brought that piece of cardboard to life. So that was really cool.”
As for Tanselle’s part in the show, Crawford carefully worked around the dragon crew. “I just tried my best to make it easy for them to fit in between the choreography,” she explained. “The other puppet shows we did, with the more human-looking stories, and of course the version where Tanselle plays the knight, we all just choreographed [them] together. Basically we planned a stage show as you would for any production; we just made sure we were facing the audience. I guess [we] had to tweak it a little bit to work for the camera, but really it just felt like we were rehearsing for a stage show.”
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is focused on Dunk’s adventures, so we don’t get a ton of background on Tanselle. That’s also the case in George R.R. Martin’s source-material novella. (Her nickname does carry over from page to screen: “Tanselle Too-Tall,” an attribute that further endears her to the towering hedge knight.) But Crawford had a good grasp on the character that helped her flesh out the role.
“Her role within the troupe—I imagine that she’s a very creative person and a creative spirit,” Crawford said. “I think she gets joy from painting and from taking those quiet moments and crafting herself, which I think is why maybe the onstage part is not her favorite aspect. But [it’s] something she still enjoys; otherwise, I don’t think she would do it.”
We see a bit of shyness in her face when she’s onstage. But Tanselle is still confident in her talent and experience, Crawford said. “I do think she is a leader within this troupe, someone that’s very knowledgeable and someone that has been a part of this troupe for a long time with her uncle and her aunt.”
New episodes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms arrive Sundays on HBO and HBO Max.
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