Gemma Whelan says lack of direction while filming Game of Thrones sex scenes led to 'a frenzied mess'

Game of Thrones was known for having some of television's most intimate scenes during its eight-year run. But according to Gemma Whelan, who played Yara Greyjoy on the hit HBO series, those intimate scenes — many of which were complex and intense — came with little direction.

While promoting her new ITV police drama The Tower, Whelan opened up to The Guardian about shooting the sex scenes in Game of Thrones without the aid of an intimacy director to help choreograph or set the scene.

"They used to just say, 'When we shout action, go for it!', and it could be a sort of frenzied mess," Whalen admitted to The Guardian, adding that the lack of direction and consent led the actors to bond and look out for themselves.

"There was a scene in a brothel with a woman and she was so exposed that we talked together about where the camera would be and what she was happy with," she continued. "A director might say, 'Bit of boob biting, then slap her bum and go!,' but I'd always talk it through with the other actor."

Helen Sloan/HBO Gemma Whelan and Alfie Allen in 'Game of Thrones.'

Whalen reiterated that consent and bond were carried through in her work with Alfie Allen, who played Whalen's on-screen brother Theon. In an episode during the show's second season, the two characters engage in a sexually-charged moment while riding a horse together — a scene that became one of the most talked-about in the series thanks to its incestuous nature.

"Alfie was very much, 'Is this okay? How are we going to make this work?'" Whalen said, recounting how they prepared for the scene. "With intimacy directors, it's choreography – you move there, I move there, and permission and consent is given before you start. It is a step in the right direction."

A representative for HBO didn't immediately respond to EW's request for comment.

Previously, Whalen discussed her infamous horse-riding scene on The Graham Norton Show, revealing that it was her audition scene for Thrones and telling Norton, "I had to do it on a chair, looking straight ahead, very very dramatically with this one casting director in the room and this very ashamed cameraman." Though Whalen revealed that Yara was the handsly one in the scene when it was originally written.

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