Katheryn Winnick Talks The Toughest Scene to Shoot in Vikings

As awesome as the show has been, there were plenty of moments in Vikings when the cast were simply overwhelmed by one scene or another that had to be shot since the clothing they had to wear, the gear they had to carry, and the inclement weather that almost appeared to conspire to make life even more miserable made it feel as though their dour looks were more real than their acting let on. Looking back through history the vikings were a fierce bunch of individuals that weathered a great many hardships in their lives and yet still created a society that was far more ordered than people gave them credit for, much a we managed to see in the show. But the brutality of this life was still very real, and as it’s described in Looper, Katheryn Winnick definitely had a few days, along with the rest of the cast, when was more or less ready to pack it in and get out of the rain. Amazingly though, her hardest moment appeared to come during her death scene since it took such an emotional toll on her. Some might say ‘of course it did, it means she’s no longer in the show’, but it was definitely more than this. The character of Lagertha went through one trial after another in her life, from the loss of a child due to miscarriage to the loss of her daughter and then her husband. She lost more than many people in the show, but she didn’t succumb to despair, and managed to rise up and become one of the greatest, if not THE greatest, shieldmaiden in the entire series.

According to legend, Lagertha was an actual person in historical texts that was tied in with Ragnar, but in a much different fashion. Where the show depicts her as being the wife of a simple farmer turned warrior turned king, and eventually portrays her as a warrior that becomes a queen that becomes an old woman that just wants peace, Lagertha was a warrior through and through in the legends. It is true that Ragnar left her for another woman, and that she continued to fight for him, but the legends are quite different from the show in a lot of ways. Her end is hard to find in the tales as she was still shown a bit of disdain by the writers despite her prowess and her willingness to be on the front lines, but her end in the show was the hardest scene for Winnick to shoot apparently. The emotional bit of it is easy enough to understand, but the weather portion is harder for some people to fully comprehend since due to the clothing they had to wear and the situation in which Lagertha died, killed by a drunken son of Aslaug who mistook her for Ivar the Boneless, it was more than just emotional, it was uncomfortable. From the rain to the chill to the outfit it was just flat out uncomfortable, and then there was the knowledge that it was all ending as well.

One can’t really blame anyone on set for being devastated that Lagertha, one of the toughest individuals in the whole series, would go out like this. It did fulfill a prophecy of course, but it was still kind of a shock to figure out that the weakest of the brothers would be the one to end her life. In the end however the fitting episode came when she was seen reuniting with Ragnar in death, completing an arc that had been started from the first episode and was finally over. Now all that’s left of the show is to finish out the sixth season and there will be nothing left save whatever spinoffs that are desired and a deep and abiding fondness to watch the Vikings seasons over and over again in order to see Lagertha and all the others continually do battle and fight for a way of life that was rather brutal but still beautiful in its own savage way. Looking back it’s easy to say that Lagertha was never really a saint, but she was a warrior and she fought for her people and those that needed her. The fact that, in the show, she kind of facilitated her own ending was almost fitting in a way since the death of Aslaugh created an enmity that wasn’t bound to die anytime soon and would continue to haunt her until the end of her days. But the manner in which her end came was still a surprise.

Now that the show is almost over it’s easy to think that Winnick will be on to other projects, but a lot of people are going to see her as Lagertha for a while yet, since she absolutely dominated this role.