Gwendoline Christie Says Severance Finale Is 'Much More Charged' Than Her Game of Thrones Action Scenes

[The following contains spoilers for Severance Season 2 Episode 10, "Cold Harbor."]

Gwendoline Christie wanted to take Emile home. The goat, whose real name is Peggy, appears right at the climax of Severance's Season 2 finale — as Gemma (Dichen Lachman) approaches the doomed "Cold Harbor" room, and as the marching band, or Lumon Industries' "Choreography and Merriment" department, gives a grand performance that literally nobody in MDR asked for (besides Mr. Milchick [Tramell Tillman], who's trapped in a bathroom). "Peggy and I bonded very, very quickly," Christie beamed about her caprine scene partner. "I kept making a quite unfunny joke about how this was my wrap gift, but no one was picking up on it." 

Both Christie, who stars as Mammalians Nurturable worker Lorne, and Emile, the goat with extraordinary "verve" and "wiles" whom Lorne presented as an offering to Lumon, play an integral role in the season finale. According to Mr. Drummond (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), Emile is to be entombed with a woman — this is obviously Gemma — "whose spirit it must guide to Kier's door." Lorne is not happy about the sacrifice. "How many more must I give?" she asks while pointing the barrel of a gun at the goat. But before Lorne can pull the trigger, they are interrupted by Mark S. (Adam Scott) causing a ruckus across the hall. This interruption — and the ensuing confrontation between Mark and Drummond — changes everything for Lorne. 

"I always had the feeling that Lorne is a fairly diligent employee, has believed in what she's a part of, and wants to do absolutely the best job possible — and deeply cares about the goats, cares about her people," Christie told TV Guide. "What we experience in that scene in the finale is a woman who explodes." 

While Lorne initially stays inside the room as the two men violently wrestle each other in the hall, she puts a gun to Drummond's head just as he is about to strangle Mark to death. "No more killing," Lorne says in a near whisper, before the Lumon fixer strikes her. Something shifts in Lorne's eyes, and she lunges at Drummond. "She's pushed too far, and she breaks in a way which is almost inconceivable," Christie shared.

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The actor noted that when Lorne was introduced in Severance Season 2 Episode 3, "Who Is Alive?" her very appearance was marked by constricting elements. She was wearing a kind of uniform that included a tight jacket, a skirt, and a tie, and it was all covered in dirt. Yet, though she appeared "incredibly disheveled," Lorne seemed to be holding Mammalians Nurturable together, with other severed employees looking to her for direction when Mark and Helly R. (Britt Lower) intruded. 

"Cold Harbor" initially introduces her in that same role. "In the finale when we see her, she's composed, she's going about her duties," Christie explained. "And then it just becomes too much — which in moments of good drama are when the pressure becomes so great, it consumes the previous identity." The acquiescing worker is gone, as Lorne shrieks while trying to land a blow on Drummond. "Lorne is overtaken by a desire to protect the vulnerable creature in front of her at all costs, and willing to take another's life who has imposed such cruelty on something which is essentially fairly helpless," Christie said.

Lorne's psychology is something the actor has given serious thought to. "It's really interesting the way that human beings deal with danger and, when the time is up — where the patience and the tolerance has run out — the spirit breaks through all of that," Christie said. "I think it's incredibly human when someone has imposed great cruelty in, as it seems, the extermination of these animals, to then be overtaken by a drive to destroy — from calculated killing to a very primitive act of destructive passion." 

The destructive passion leads her to nearly shoot Drummond, after beating him to a pulp. "Mark catches Lorne in that moment and allows her to reconnect with herself," Christie continued. "And to know what is the right thing to do, as opposed to what the rush of blood and fury at injustice has overtaken the woman and caused an almost ultimately destructive act."

ALSO READ: Severance's Tramell Tillman wanted Milchick's marching band scene to stand on its own

The actor is no stranger to high-intensity action scenes. For seven seasons, Christie starred as the formidable Brienne of Tarth in Game of Thrones, though she said she used her body differently in the two series. "In Game of Thrones, I was playing a woman who wanted to be a knight in a man's world that told her she couldn't be because she was a woman," Christie said. "And Brienne was always connected to a higher sense of purpose to be in service of an idea greater than herself, and she was working from an idea of meditative nobility." Because of that, her actions stemmed from a drive to do what is right. 

Compare that with Lorne, who Christie said is a woman who's been "compressed" and "controlled." "She has carried out her job diligently, and it has eroded her spirit down to her becoming a human being that can only feel an affinity with the animals rather than the human beings around her," the actor shared. "And there is a moment of crisis, deep crisis that transforms her. Almost an animal comes out of Lorne."

Her Severance character is operating from an entirely different psychic state than Brienne did. "This is much more fiery," Christie said. "This is much more charged and bordering on psychotic, which made it such a thrill to play."

Season 2 of Severance is now streaming on Apple TV+.