(Kwenthrith was pregnant with Judiths husbands baby.
How strange life is!)
We talked to Amy Bailey about the end of Kwenthrith.
Credit: Jonathan Hession/HISTORY
(Click here for an interviewwith another exitingVikingscast member, andclick here for the full recapof the episode.)
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I am traumatized by the death of Kwenthrith.
How did you find out this was going to be the end of your time on the show?
I also became pregnant with twins in real life.
They are seven months old now.
I was six months pregnantwhen we shot that fight scene.
I called him up and said, Dude, Im gonna bereallybig by the time we film that.
They knew that they had to write me out.
What do you think Kwenthrith was thinking when she went into Ecberts chamber?
Did she think there was still a way out for her?
I think she knew that her life was at risk.
I think she knew that Ecbert was gonna kill her and kill her child.
It felt like an inevitable thing for her.
Michael and I, we talked about the death scene extensively.
I said to him, I feel so strongly that Kwenthrith is going downfighting.
Shes gonna take down as many people as she can.
She always has been so desperate for any kind of control of her life, her situation.
From the moment you appeared on this show, Kwenthrith brought such an incredible energy to the series.
What was it like building the character over the last couple of seasons?
And pretty sad, in a way.
It was her always trying to gain control of what happened to her.
When she had an interaction with someone, especially a man, she was always in control.
She was never going to be that victimized child.
It gave me a lot more depth for why she was the way she was.
Thats not really fair.
She had a reason for the way she was.
Maybe there was a little more of that on the Viking side.
But Michael was showing the contrast between the female characters.
And then you have someone like Kwenthrith, who should really be her equal shes also a queen!
and she is vilified for being sexual.
She has that great final line to Ecbert: Do you know what would have been better for me?
Can you even imagine?
To have been born a man.
When I got the script, I thought that was such a beautiful line.
It summed it up.
It was so tragic.
I want to hear a little more about filming that fight sequence in Kill the Queen.
That would have been intense evenwithoutbeing six months pregnant with twins.
This season was really interesting for me, because I was becoming a mother for the first time.
From the moment we met Kwenthrith, she was, as you said, constantly scraping.
Was there any point in the show where you think she found something like grace, or happiness?
A turning point in my mind in creating this character was when she had Magnus.
I think that was, until the day she died, the only true love she had ever known.
If she did, it was a damaged thing.
There was a vulnerability to her.
She was reaching out to Judith for friendship.
And her relationship to Aethelwulf felt the same way.
She saw in Aethelwulf that he had a lot of devotion.
He was definitely her protector, which she needed.
And she has known him for years.
Shes seen his sad, confused relationship with his father, which she understands.
She had a terrible relationship with her father.
Theres a symbiosis there.
Theyre both abused children, essentially.
