Rachel Weisz had a serious problem with a horse from “Game of Thrones”
The horses on Game of Thrones put up with an awful lot. Sandor Clegane’s black stallion, for example, carries the Hound and Arya across long distances without becoming fatigued. It turns out he’s not the only highly trained horse on Game of Thrones. In fact, the horses are so well trained that actress Rachel Weisz ran into a bit of trouble working with them for her new film My Cousin Rachel.
Trainers from GoT taught the horse to play dead, as is per usual on the show. My Cousin Rachel then used some of the same horses.So when Weisz accidentally pulled on its braid, the horse took that as a signal to play dead. The results were “not un-painful,” Weisz explained on The Graham Norton Show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFcEByVkgJ4?feature=oembed
Here’s how it went down (literally).
She explained to the host, "It had had been taught to ‘die,’ when the left rein was pulled so when I finished a scene and pulled on the left rein he did an elegant collapse on top of me. It wasn’t un-painful! There was a horrible silence on set until everyone realized I was alright."
She also shared an, um, uncomfortable story about some frisky horses.
If the horse hasn’t been gelded, it can have some, well, animalistic reactions to outside stimulus. And her horse got so turned on at points, it would have a giant erection that would hold up the filming process. In order to drown out the smells, the horse trainer would put Vicks VapoRub inside the horse’s nostrils.
Or, they’d have to literally kick the erection, Weisz explained. That doesn’t sound “un-painful” either.
Ahem, either way, wow horses are really incredible! Thanks for your service, horses, for helping to make GoT as believable and epic as it is.
