Happy Halloween from Keisha Castle-Hughes World

Keisha Castle-Hughes "Pic of the Day"

Keisha Castle Hughes returns to TV with Unabomber

Keisha Castle-Hughes knows something I don't. We've been chatting about movies, TV and being Kiwis in the USA. Today she's in New York to meet the East Coast press ahead of the release of the Discovery Channel series Manhunt: Unabomber. Keisha appears alongside big-screen heavy-hitters Sam Worthington (Hacksaw Ridge) and Paul Bettany (The Da Vinci Code) as Worthington's partner in the FBI's hunt for Ted Kaczynski (Bettany), who waged a one-man campaign of terror from 1978 to 1995 via mailbombs sent to American businesses and universities.

 So we're up here in the slightly baroque Fifth Avenue splendidness of New York's Peninsula Hotel, when we find ourselves talking about how being a TV actor is no longer anything like second tier compared to being in a movie, and how the TV roles have recently become often the more prestigious. With TV shows now often having the best scripts, the best directors, and the best budgets, it is completely possible in 2017 to be a major star without ever being blasted through the projector at anyone's local multiplex

So I say to Keisha something like 'and you must know that better than anyone here, you're on Game of Thrones after all...' But I swear she gives me the tiniest of frowns before her usual grin reappears. Two days later, at home in Brooklyn, I'm curled up on the couch with the cat and a beer watching with some embarrassment as Keisha meets a typically gruesome fate at the hands of current Thrones' boo-hiss villain Euron Greyjoy and some slightly sadistic writer's imagination. Keisha would have shot those scenes months before. Of course she couldn't say a thing. But it must have stung a little to be reminded. Keisha Castle-Hughes has been a working actor since she was 12 years old. In 2002, despite having no on-screen experience, she was cast in Niki Caro's film adaptation of Witi Ihimaera's novel Whale Rider. It's the stuff of New Zealand legend now that her work in that film led to Keisha becoming the then youngest ever nominee for an Academy Award for Best Actress. She lost out to Charlize Theron – who was the favourite by daylight for her role in Monster – but the recognition put Keisha firmly in the sights of directors and casting agents from all over the world.

 Parts in numerous movies and high-end American TV have followed, with that recurring role as the ill-fated Obara Sand in Game of Thrones – aka, the biggest TV show in the world – surely being a highpoint. In Manhunt: Unabomber, Keisha locates a tough, streetwise, whip smart and irrepressible woman who serves as a worthy foil and co-conspirator to Worthington's slightly maverick FBI agent Jim Fitzgerald. Her role is a composite character, but based closely on a couple of actual agents. As she says, "it's there in the writing. As soon as I started to read the script I was like...I'm fighting for this one. She's a brilliant, brilliant woman to play". Which, coming from an actor who scored an Oscar nomination the first time she set foot on a film set and has played Jesus's mum (in 2006's The Nativity Story) to great critical acclaim, is some high praise. "I think a lot, maybe most, of the best roles are being written for the TV shows now. Especially as the movies play it safer and safer, the roles written for women in Hollywood seem to be getting...I dunno, more cliched maybe? But over a season of TV, every character has to develop and grow and the interactions between the characters have to be believable. Otherwise, we'll just switch off. It's kind of a golden age I reckon. I just hope it keeps going." While she says this, the table falls silent. The other four reporters, along with Worthington and Manhunt:Unabomber writer and producer Andrew Sodroski have all paused their own conversations to listen to what Keisha is saying. It's a nice moment, a genuine breakout in a media forum that usually makes it hard to get a word in edgeways. Keisha notices the silence and looks around the table. She grins. "Kiwis..." we both laugh.

Is Keisha Castle-Hughes engaged?

Those watching the social media account of Kiwi Game of Thrones’ actress Keisha Castle-Hughes are wondering — is she or isn’t she engaged? The LA-based actress is on holiday with boyfriend, visual effects co-ordinator and producer James Uddo, and there have been hints the pair may be engaged. They flew to Istanbul earlier this month then moved to the Greek islands — and that’s when the romance skipped up a notch. On the island of Paxos, Castle-Hughes, 27, posted a picture of Uddo on bended knee with a cryptic description. Next up she posed with a cocktail which she was “engaged to”. The social media congrats started and then the cocktail post was deleted. On Valentine’s Day 2013 she married DJ Jonathan Morrison, but the pair later separated. Castle-Hughes daughter with Bradley Hull, Felicity, is now 10 years old. As for getting a romantic marriage proposal in Greece, Castle-Hughes made a rare comment on the speculation: “No, no — not engaged at all! Just having a fabulous time in Greece with family and friends,” she told Spy.

Keisha Castle-Hughes "GIFof the Day"

Nymeria Sand and Obara Sand Come to an end

Keisha Castle-Hughes "Pic of the Day"

Keisha Castle-Hughes on 'Insane' 'Game of Thrones' Death: 'It's a Really Cool Way to Go Out'

Game of Thrones isn’t afraid to get gruesome with its deaths -- and they upped the ante on Sunday’s episode. In the episode, titled “Stormborn,” Oberyn Martell’s eldest daughter, fierce warrior Obara Sand (Keisha Castle-Hughes), suffered a “gruesome” demise during an epic sea battle, when she was impaled in the stomach with her own spear. Obara wasn’t the only Sand to die -- her sister, Nymeria Sand (Jessica Henwick), also suffered the same fate, at the hand of her own whip.

“It was insane,” Castle-Hughes told ET with a laugh, of her character’s farewell episode. “You know what? It’s a really cool way to go out. One of the greatest things about [the show] is that it’s always promised to give each character an on-screen death. However, they’ve fallen into -- after seven seasons -- having to top the last death every time. We can’t forget the end of last season, when we lost half the cast in one massive explosion, so how do you top that? They did it!” The 27-year-old actress opened up about the physical demands of filming the intense HBO fantasy drama, revealing that Obara’s death scene had quite a lot of moving parts.

“It’s a very physically demanding show. The characters we were playing were incredibly physically demanding. There are a lot of elements at bay to play with. You’re wearing leather armor and you’re on a slippery ship. There are a hundred people around you and you gotta make sure that you hit the spear at the right actor, otherwise it could go wrong really quickly,” Castle-Hughes said. “They have a great stunt team who -- I don’t know how they do it -- somehow choreograph it and make it all work. It’s wild for it to come to an end." Castle-Hughes confessed she always imagined Obara’s death scene to be less fierce and more low-key, a total contrast to her usual all-business demeanor. “I kept pitching -- the thing is, with Obara Sand, she’s so over-the-top in a good way -- and we used to always make up these backstories with the girls who play my sisters. Jessica Henwick [who plays Nymeria] and I would just make these stories up, like Obara just needed a night out. She was just so serious about killing everyone all the time, it was like, gosh, settle down!” she recalled.

 “Because she’s so fierce and angry and ready for battle at all times -- every scene she’s asleep, she’d be in full armor while other people are sleeping normally and she’s with her spear ready to fight. Imagine if she just ate something, if she left Dorne and she ate something bad and got food poisoning and died,” Castle-Hughes mused, chuckling at her idea. “Wouldn’t that be great to see something like that take a fierce character like that down?” Though Castle-Hughes says “of course” she wishes she had more time to dig deeper into her character’s family backstory, she confesses it was hard jumping into the vast world in season five. “In terms of our characters as a whole, it was a very difficult job from the get-go because it was an introduction of a lot of characters at once and an entire new world, followed by the introduction of Oberyn Martell, played so eloquently by Pedro Pascal,” she said. “It would have been nice if we could have explored who those people were, but it would have been difficult to develop characters when you have such a big ensemble and you’re following so many storylines. What we were able to contribute, in terms of toward the story as a whole, and I am really proud of the work that we did together.”