'Game of Thrones' newbie Keisha Castle-Hughes talks about playing a new kind of warrior woman

We all mourned the brutal death of Oberyn Martell in Game of Thrones last season, but there’s a ray of hope for lovers of the hot-headed Dornish prince. Just as the awesome Spanish-accented Red Viper was driven by vengeance, so will his daughters now that their dad is six feet under. Keisha Castle-Hughes (you may know her as being one of the youngest best actress Oscar nominees ever, for Whale Rider) is playing one of those daughters, Obara Sand. Being raised by the bloodthirsty, patriarchy-defying feminist that is Oberyn Martell, Obara is of course a spear-wielding butt-kicker who Castle-Hughes calls a “warrior monk” in an interview with Stuff.co.nz. But she says Oberyn’s daughters, collectively called the Sand Snakes, will be different than the other lady warriors we’ve seen on the show:

It will be very exciting to see women in Game of Thrones who work together because we haven’t seen that yet, we’ve seen strong women but they’re always either lone wolves like Arya Stark or Brienne of Tarth, or they’re political leaders like Cersei Lannister or Daenerys Targaryen, so we meet these three women who are warriors, who work together and who have nothing to lose which is very dangerous. That’ll definitely be cool to see, especially after a potentially amazing meeting between Arya and Brienne went down in flames. And hopefully a trio of powerful Dornish women who love each other will help them live down that infamous nipple armor. Otherwise, Castle-Hughes was pretty tight-lipped on what the vengeful Sand Snakes will be up to after their father’s death. But she does give a little insight to her training regimen, which we seem to get a peek of in the HBO behind-the-scenes feature: It’s been very intensive, my character wields a 7-foot spear, the same as her father, so I’ve had lots of martial art training in the martial art of Wushu which has been really interesting and different for me, I’m more of a dramatic actress and I’ve never really done a lot physical or stunt-based roles before.