For Kit Harington, a great pleasure of playing Jon Snow for eight seasons on Game of Thrones has been the collaborations and friendships he developed not only with fellow cast members but also key staff and crew. One person he’s particularly close to is Camilla Naprous, the show’s horse mistress—a cool title that means is she provided and supervised all the horses and stunt riders used on the series (through her company, The Devil’s Horsemen); choreographed scenes involving horses, including battles; and taught Harington and the actors how to ride. Among her other credits are Wonder Woman, The Favourite, and the forthcoming, yet-to-be-fully-titled Star Wars: Episode 9. (What, what? Aren’t horses the opposite of Star Wars?)

I recently sat down with Harington, who dialed Naprous on his smart phone. After greetings and catching up—he and I were in New York; she was in Fort Worth, Texas for an event at the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame—the conversation turned toward the Battle of the Bastards, the epic penultimate episode of the show’s sixth season. People who worked on Game of Thrones, I’ve learned, tend to talk quite a bit about the Battle of the Bastards.

Kit Harington: Camilla, I remember you saying to me that, at the end of Season Five, David and Dan [the producers, David Benioff and Dan Weiss] asked, “Is there anything we can do for you?” And you said, “Well, I want something ambitious.” And then they wrote Battle of the Bastards, and you kind of went, “Well not that ambitious.” [Laughs]

Camilla Naprous: I mean, if we could have gotten David and Dan to stop the rain during Battle of the Bastards and the mud, it would've helped. But that was an amazing experience because, for me, that was my first big battle, with the horses.

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ESQUIRE: How many horses did you use? I assume some were created digitally, but you clearly had a very large horse… cast? I don't know what else to call them.

Naprous: We had about a hundred horses for Battle of the Bastards. Obviously, there are moments that couldn’t be done with a real horse. But as much as possible, I like to see the real thing. I like to see my actors ride their horses. I don't want any stunt doubles. I want to see the real deal on the horse. And working with Kit is amazing, because he uses all of his training and we have such great trust in each other. I mean the shot when the horses are galloping toward you? David and Dan actually said to me that if they were there that day, they would’ve never let us shoot that shot.

Harrington: [Laughs] I didn't know that.

Naprous: Yeah, they were like, “The sad thing is, if we were there, we would've thought it was too dangerous.” And I was like, “No, my god, it was super safe. I had my best guys on the front line [of charging horses], we were never going to touch him.” But, it's scary having, you know, thirty horses charging at full speed towards someone, and I'm hoping they're going to stop.

"I like to see my actors ride their horses," Game of Thrones horse mistress Camilla Naprous says. "I don't want any stunt doubles. I want to see the real deal on the horse." HBO

That's the shot where Jon is alone on the ground, after he’s led a charge and his horse has been shot out from under him, and the Bolton horses are now charging towards him?

Naprous: Yeah that's the scene, when he pulls his sword and he’s waiting for the onslaught.

Harington: Camilla or someone stood in there show me how it would be done, and these horses are galloping and they stop--from gallop to stop—right in front of me, about as far as I am from you now [maybe a couple yards]. Fom gallop to stop.

On screen, the shot is cut before the horses stop, so the audience is left believing you’re about to be trampled.

Harington: It’s insane to watch. Everyone thinks that’s CGI, but it’s not. It’s kind of incredible what Camilla and the guys [stunt riders] can do with the horses, it's fantastic.

Naprous: But you do know that it's the boys’ favorite—definitely David’s. He’s told me it’s his favorite shot of the whole eight seasons—well seven seasons, because we haven't seen number eight.

Harington: Quite an iconic one, I think.

Naprous: Oh my god, people have tried to recreate it already, which is kind of slightly annoying for me. I was like, you're already trying to steal our shot? Really? I mean, at least give it like five years or something. But I suppose we should take that as you know, a compliment.

Harington: It’s weird that when you're shooting Thrones, you can't predict which bit is going to be remembered or become iconic—or even work. You just shoot it and then it all comes together after. Maybe Miguel [Sapochnik, the director] does during the edit, I don't know, but I don't think he does. I didn't predict when we were doing that shot that it would be one of the shots of Thrones that really worked.

Naprous: It felt like a throwaway moment on the day. I mean, Battle of the Bastards, I don't think I've ever worked so hard in my life over the period of time [two weeks] in which we shot it. We were jumping from so many sequences throughout the day. It was a marathon. And dealing with the weather conditions that we kind of had halfway through, with our battle field collapsing and turning into an ice rink of mud—you couldn't walk across it at one point—and then being out at 3 o'clock in the morning trying to bring in 20 tons of gravel to make the set work.



Harington: We were boned by the weather. We had, like, half shitty rain and half bright blinding sun, which is crap for the cameramen. And the rain is a nightmare for everyone else. It was the worst weather conditions we could’ve asked for.

Naprous: We had emergency meetings at night—there's so much money invested now, we have to move forward, we can't stop this shoot. So we just imported a lot of gravel with a lot of wheelbarrows and a lot of shovels.

I can't even imagine what those meetings were like. You just call around North Ireland in the middle of the night and find a gravel pit?



Naprous: We have an amazing location manager. They can find anything any time of the day. But that's when it becomes really special, when we all have to problem solve. You've got a couple of hours—how are we going to fix this?—and everyone collaborates and brings their ideas forward and we all worked together, and we got it fixed and we carried on shooting. That makes it fun too. It keeps you on your toes. It keeps you second guessing.



Harington: But then we as actors were brought up in the morning having heard none of the drama really, just going, “Oh, look, there's gravel down. Great, we can walk on it!”



"It’s weird that when you're shooting Thrones, you can't predict which bit is going to be remembered or become iconic—or even work," Kit Harington says. HBO

Camilla, tell me about Kit as a horseman and your experiences training him.



Harington: I'm just going to move away….

Naprous: I loved it because—I’d never had this experience and I probably won’t get it again—I had eight years with him. Normally, you do a movie and I can only put so much information [about riding] into you. What I got with Kit was each season I got to build him up more and more and more, so you have everything put within him. I love working with you and I love the three horses that I’ve trained with you. Good old Concord, rest in peace—he's now passed away. But I loved your relationship with Tornado, and how you worked together, because the horse has to act as much as the actors, and the horse has to help the actors. It becomes like a dance when you’re learning to ride—you start to find your dancing partner. But if people can’t ride, it makes it very complicated—it’s not a good day. But we had some amazing rides together. Do you remember I was teaching you to vault on? My god, you did that in like one go.



Harington: And then I couldn't do it on the fucking day in the costume. You have vault from standing onto the horse’s back—and I did it, like, in one, just in my tracky bottoms [tracksuit pants], thinking this is a piece of piss. And then I tried on the day of the shoot with my full costume and I failed miserably. Your boy [a stuntman] did it in one with the costume on, doubling for me. But going back to the horses, I want to give Concord a shout out, god bless his soul.



Naprous: He died of natural causes, just so we put that in. [Laughs]

Harington: He was a great horse if you were shooting a scene where he needed not to move. He was the best horse at not moving at all. He was so—he'd just sit there with his head down and do nothing. But the minute they called wrap he'd bolt back to get his food—so you had to get me off Concord before they called wrap because they minute he heard “wrap” he'd get back.

Then Tornado—I remember just being in awe of Tornado. Camilla’s trained him so beautifully that you can just lean on him with your right leg and he steps sideways, left leg and he steps that way. You gently press him once, he goes into a canter, you press a bit harder, he'll go into a gallop. And he pulls back and—he's just astonishing. He makes me feel like an incredible rider, but put me on any other horse and I'd probably quickly find out I'm not as good as I thought.



Naprous: No! You are really good. But you know what I love about you even more? I've lost count of how many actors I've taught to ride—hundreds of them—and I reckon I could count on one hand how many actors remember their horses' names, and you remember all three and that's such a lovely thing that you give that respect back to them because not many actors do.

Like the human actors, Game of Thrones horses die and come back to life on the show. "I killed off Tornado in Battle of the Bastards then I brought him back for the next season," Naprous says. "I think he got killed the most of any character in Game of Thrones. He just kept on coming back." HBO

Who was the third horse?



Harington: Quinton. I had Quinton, Tornado, and Concord. Quinton is sort of the—he's a Ferrari, isn't he? I think I went from Quinton to Tornado, for some reason. They kind of double up as each other—they look very similar.



Naprous: I killed off Tornado in Battle of the Bastards then I brought him back for the next season. I was like, “Oh well, people won't know.” [Laughs] I think he got killed the most of any character in Game of Thrones. He just kept on coming back.



Tornado is the horse that gets shot out from under Jon in Battle of the Bastards?

Naprous: Yeah.

When the horse falls over, is that done with CGI now, or do the horses do stunts?

Naprous: They do—that's real. We used a stunt double [for Tornado] to do it. It works on a cue and the poor horse falls over. He has a [mattress] to hit, same as a stuntman, so the timing for the rider and the accuracy he has to achieve is on another level. The horses are only allowed to fall over three times a day—this is my rule—and we only did it, like, three days in the week. We’re very much about protecting them and their safety, making sure they're comfortable. If they're not comfortable they wouldn't do it. They have to put so much trust in us.



Harington: Just sitting on a horse, especially ones as highly tuned as the ones Camilla has, if they feel you're nervous or if they feel you're just not comfortable on them, they're not comfortable. If you get to a point with a horse where you sit on the horse you're comfortable with it, then it will do exactly as you ask and you respect it. But I remember my first season, there was one scene in the woods where I was on Concord or something—and the horse started sort of freaking out because I was freaking out. There is some footage in some back room somewhere, on the cutting room floor, of me screeching, “Camilla! Camillaaa!”

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