Hannah Murray’s movie ‘Bridgend’ is the "toughest job" she has had to date.
The 28-year-old ‘Game of Thrones’ actress filmed her scenes as Sara in the feature debut from Danish documentary filmmaker Jeppe Ronde in 2015 but the movie is now getting a DVD release in the UK.
The movie follows Murray’s character who moves to the former mining town of Bridgend with her policeman father (Steven Waddington). She discovers that the town has been plagued by a string of suicides and as Sara is drawn into the clique of teenagers who hang out together she realises what is causing the deaths.
Murray admits the shooting process was both physically and mentally exhausting and some scenes left her body actually bruised.
Speaking to Den of Geek, the British actress said: "It was physically and emotionally the toughest job I’ve ever done. It was a joke how many bruises I had on my body every day. I’d go into costume and makeup every morning and go ‘look at me!’ because my arms were covered in bruises. It’s because you want everything to be real. That was the other thing with Jeppe from day one: we’re not going to fake anything. It’s got to feel real and it’s got to feel true."
Murray shot to fame as Cassie in ‘Skins’ before landing the role of Gilly in HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’.
She is fast becoming an actress in demand and can be seen in Kathryn Bigelow’s biographical drama ‘Detroit’, which is set against the backdrop of the July 1967 Detroit riot which kicked off as a result of rage at apparent institutionalised racism following a police raid of an unlicensed, after-hours bar then known as a ‘blind pig’.
Murray is enjoying the variety of her roles so far but insists she isn’t a "method actor" and can switch off from her work when she goes home.
She said: "I’m not a method actor – I don’t like to go home and stay in character. I think for me at least, it’s important to go back to the hotel and have a drink and have a laugh or whatever, because otherwise you’d go a bit mad. I also find it interesting sometimes, because I’m really bad at crying, and I have to cry a lot. To do my job well, I need to be really free and playful. And so sometimes that does mean mucking around before a take, and then weirdly, that enables you to go further into the darkness."