A game of FIRSTS

WHIP-SMART IN MORE ways in than one, Singaporean-British actress Jessica Henwick might have cracked the secret code to fame in film and television, joining the cast of “Game of Thrones” as the first East Asian to have a regular role in the hit HBO fantasy series.
Dropping into Singapore this week to promote the upcoming Season 5 finale of “GoT”, Henwick portrays one of the Sand Snakes, three killer sisters from different mothers. They out for vengeance over the death of their father, Oberon Martell, prince of the fantasy realm’s southernmost and most exotic kingdom, Dorne.
As Nymeria Sand, Henwick is the second eldest of Oberon’s eight “bastard” daughters and wields a bullwhip as her weapon. She is teamed with older sister Obara, the spear-twirling leader of the trio who is portrayed by New Zealand actress Keisha Castle-Hughes (previously seen in “Whale Rider” and “Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith”) and Tyene Sand, a double-bladed fireball played by Italian actress Rosabell Laurenti Sellers.
For Henwick, the 22-year-old Surrey-born daughter of a Chinese-Singaporean mother and a British father, “Game of Thrones” is her biggest job yet. Classically trained in theatre, she previously worked in British television, making her debut as a teenager in 2010 in the lead role of “Spirit Warriors”, a children’s fantasy-adventure series that was the first UK television drama to have a predominantly East Asian cast. It was for that show she learned the stage-fighting art of wushu, and she’s kept up her combat skills by doing Thai boxing and other martial arts. She also portrayed a fast-rising young barrister on the BBC legal drama “Silk”.
However, “Thrones” has been a game-changer for her in terms of international recognition.
“The last day I was filming in Spain, it was leaked who we were, and 100 fans swarmed, hollering ‘Yessica, Yessica’ and wanting me to sign books and strange parts of their bodies,” Henwick recalls. “Overall, the fan experience has been really lovely. They are very intense, though, especially fans of the book, who probably know the story better than [author] George RR Martin does.”
While “Games of Thrones” has come under criticism for its brutal treatment of female characters this season, Henwick says she’s had a positive experience so far.
“The reason I was attracted to playing Nym and the Dornish side is that it’s not a patriarchal society,” she says. And in terms of the fantasy genre, which is usually male-dominated, “it’s very rare to see strong women like the Sand Snakes”.
Regarding the gratuitous nudity for which “Game of Thrones” is infamous, Henwick says her character so far isn’t the type that gets naked – that task fell to younger sis Tyene in Season 5’s pulse-raising seventh episode, “The Gift”.
“If they come to me with a scene and it makes sense, I might do it,” she says. “This aggravates me that this is a question I get asked, but I’m on a show that’s known for sex and violence, so I get it.”
Mainly, Nymeria lets her bullwhip do the talking for her, and it’s a skill that Henwick trained six months to master, working with a coach and copying moves from the YouTube videos of bullwhip craftsman Adam Winrich.
The painful practising paid off when the Sand Snakes were introduced in the fourth episode, “Sons of the Harpy”, in which Nym used her whip to surgically remove an upturned bucket of scorpions from the head of a man who’d been buried up to his neck in the sand. The crack of the whip also announces the start of a quickly escalating skirmish in the controversial sixth episode, “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken”, which takes its title from the Sand Snakes’ official motto.
Working with the whip around her co-stars was a big challenge, and it took a lot of rehearsal and whip-cracking to get herself, Castle-Hughes and Sellers to not flinch at the weapon’s distinctive gunshot-like crack, which is actually caused by the sound barrier being broken. Now she’s comfortable with it.
“I’m gunning for two whips, because the only thing cooler than one whip is two whips,” she says.
As Season 5 of “Game of Thrones” winds down, Henwick is looking into writing and directing her own dramatic film. Or, perhaps she could be “the female Indiana Jones”. And the Singaporean social media is abuzz over rumours that she’s been cast in the upcoming “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”. But she can’t talk about any of that.
Mainly, she’s still getting her head around her newfound fame. “I’ve had my first press junket. I’ve had my first TV interview. None of these things were in my life before ‘Game of Thrones’. And I learned the whip, which was good.”
A self-professed geek who’s into gaming and genre films – she hopes to see “Jurassic World” – she’s also social-media savvy and active on Twitter (@Jhenwick). But she is not on Facebook and is much bemused by the Facebook fan page, the Jessica Henwick Appreciation Society.
She’s been choosy about her roles, which was difficult while working in Britain, where East Asian actors tend to be stereotyped.
“Being in England, it’s hard. There’s a lot of misrepresentation, but I feel like I’ve been part of a movement that’s happening to help things, and hopefully this is a step in the right direction,” she says. “I am very proud of my Asian heritage.”
As for the future of Nym and the rest of the Sand Snakes, Henwick muses that it would be interesting to see her character travel outside Dorne, perhaps even to the main kingdom of Westeros. But, of course, she won’t spoil the ending. For that, fans will have to tune in to the premiere on Monday of the finale, “The Dance of Dragons”, and find out for themselves.

WHIPPING UP
The fifth-season finale of “Games of Thrones” premieres at 8am on Monday with an encore at 8 that night on HBO.
 See more at www.YouTube.com/user/GameofThrones.