'Game of Thrones' season 6 updates: Tormund actor spills the details on romantic interest in Brienne of Tarth

After Tormund Giantsbane (Kristofer Hivju) was spotted staring at Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie) several times in Season 6 Episode 6 of “Game of Thrones,” a lot of fans speculated that an unlikely romance would be borne between the two big warriors.

“Game of Thrones” director Dan Sackheim confirmed that Tormund actually has feelings for Brienne.

The Hollywood Reporter says that Hivju also believes that Tormund is attracted to Brienne. The actor said that Tormund might not know the difference between love and lust. For the wildling, everything he feels is mixture of pleasantries, which he describes as “love-lust at first sight.”

According to Vanity Fair, Hivju was excited when he discovered that Tormund would interact with Brienne in the Season 4 script. He thought that the female knight was a perfect match for the wildling leader. He stated that both characters are tough, which is a great start for a relationship. However, Brienne might be skeptical about Tormund’s emotions and advances towards her, considering how she was ridiculed for her appearance through the years.

Entertainment Weekly cites Gwendoline Christie in saying that she enjoyed playing a more vulnerable Brienne. She described Tormund as the opposite of Brienne, and she enjoyed how Brienne felt embarrassed by the situation.

CinemaBlend writes that initial hints of the two characters developing a relationship began earlier in Season 6 when Tormund gave Brienne a lustful glance while they all shared a meal at Castle Black. The next loving glance happened when the company was getting ready to leave the castle and gather an army for the Starks to reclaim Winterfell. Tormund was again shown watching and smiling at Brienne, who did not know how to react to it all.

Although there was a time when Jamie Lannister (NikolajCoster-Waldau) and Brienne bonded well and suggested that they could be a pair, the former subsequently turned out to be too busy dealing with problems in his own family and was too loyal to Cersei (Lena Headey) to be committed to anyone else. At present, Tormund and Brienne’s scenes provided a comedic relief for “Game of Thrones” fans as the season heads towards darker times.

“Game of Thrones” Season 6 will air next on June 5, 2016 on HBO. It also airs on Foxtel in Australia.