To be fair to Tamzin, I think that the Dany that she was originally playing and that she was told about, was pretty different than the Dany that Emilia eventually portrayed. The staff admitted to major rewrite of the pilot, and mentioned Dany's scenes as one that really needed to be gutted and redone.
So I can't help but wonder if the script had been different for Tamzin if she would have taken the role. She mentions a few things about the pilot and contract that make me think whatever vision she had for the character to make it her character, didn't match what the directors and producers wanted; and she felt forced to go against how she saw the character that helped her make the decision to withdraw.
Emilia and Tamzin were given the same script. The script was to show Dany and Drogo "making love" on their wedding night and the scene being consensual. GRRM even said that the scene between Tamzin and Jason was so "hot" that Dany's horse (which is supposed to be female but for some reason was played by a male horse) got aroused and it was visible, making the entire crew crack up.
However, when Emilia joined the cast, she expressed concern about the order of events for her and Drogo's relationship. How, they have this great wedding night but then the next episode, she's crying while he's raping her, then it's back to them making love again.
And when Emilia expressed her concerns, Benioff and Weiss agreed that, while it may work in the books (it doesn't), it didn't work for the visual medium and so they changed the wedding night scene.
And for once, I just gotta say, they were fucking right. They may have ruined the greatest television show of all time, but in this instance, they were right. It makes no sense that George wrote this wedding night seduction scene only for Drogo to go on to not give a shit for all the other nights of their marriage until Dany takes back control.
I've never read George talk about the "other nights" of Dany and Drogo's marriage after the wedding. He is adamant that Drogo doesn't rape Dany on their wedding night, but has been silent about the other nights where Dany cries into her pillow and is so sore she can't even sleep afterward.
What is the point of that? Is it to make Drogo an even worse character? Like, he seduces her to get the marriage consummated and over with, but then he doesn't care because he got what he wanted? Or does George honestly not think the other scenes between Dany and Drogo where she is literally in so much pain she's crying, are rape?
It's interesting that Tamzin was so uncomfortable with the role and how she was persuaded to sign on by the producers anyway because it's exactly what they did with the actress who played Shae. Sibel Kekilli didn't like how Shae treated Tyrion in the books but the producers liked her so much, they changed the character so that she would agree to play her.
How fucking wild is that?
The change with Dany and Drogo's relationship makes sense to me because in the books, it makes little sense why Drogo's approach to sex changes so drastically from one chapter to the next. And the change in the show changes nothing about Dany's character on a personal level or her struggles. And people still ship Dany and Drogo even after watching those scenes.
But with Shae, that is her whole ass character. Shae isn't in love with Tyrion in the books so it adds a layer to Tyrion's character because he knows this. So for them to make that change, gahhh it just whitewashes Tyrion's character so much more. Like, ohh poor me, this woman actually loved me and THEN she betrayed me, and so he gets a free pass for killing her (and his father) and no one calls him mad for it....
Sorry, this turned into a clusterfuck of a random rant about a lot of things. No clue why the producers fought so hard to keep Tamzin in the beginning when she wanted to pull out and then ended up recasting Daenerys anyway. Maybe they could see her discomfort in the original pilot and realized they had been wrong to persuade her to stay, so they recast. That's my theory at least. As to what made Tamzin so uncomfortable with the character/part? No idea. From what Emilia has said about Jason, he was super protective of her so I can't imagine he wasn't the same way when filming scenes with Tamzin. Perhaps Tamzin was uncomfortable with GRRM calling her sex scene "hot" and she was creeped out by this creepy old man 😂
