Alexander Dreymon and Emily Cox reflect on Uhtred and Brida’s love-hate relationship in Netflix’s The Last Kingdom.
"all die!" Some say in shock, Emily Cox. "From season one [The Last Kingdom], it's just Eliza, Alex, and me. Everyone else is gone!" We're talking Zoom in July 2021, a month after filming wrapped on the final season of the Netflix action drama, and Cox hasn't had much time to reflect. She went straight from playing warrior Brida in the feature film Alma & Oscar to the lead role, even going so far as to miss a wrap party with her beloved Last Kingdom co-stars.
Being one of only three original cast members still standing at the start of last season (along with Alexander Draiman's head Uhtred and Elijah Butterworth's Holy Lady Elswyth) clearly means a lot. Cox speaks of Breeda's character with affection and compassion – no easy task for a character capable of such misery. In season five, Brida is Uhtred's enemy. But it didn't start that way.
"She's changed a lot," Cox says. "She started out like this, quite sociable in her own way, the young girl who was in love and had her whole life in front of her. Now, she's such an angry, angry woman who has been hurt so badly."
Brida's suffering began in childhood when she, like Uhtred, was kidnapped and raised by Dane. After the murder of their adopted Viking father, the young couple set off on separate journeys. Uhtred, as Alexander Dreimann told Dane of Geek, is about being comfortable with his dual identities of Saxons and Danes. There is no such peace involved in Brida. An ardent believer in Danish supremacy, for him, fighting for the Daneland is the only true path.
It's all about safety, Cox explains. “When she was a little girl, she was taken away from him. In his world, the only way to keep the world safe is if Denland is everywhere. She is trying to get that security for herself and her daughter."
Season five introduces Betty Wibeke (Emily Eckchina), a daughter Brida never thought would be cursed for not having children in the first season. As the curse lifts, Brida becomes pregnant by her Viking partner Cnut, whom she kills when she learns that she had plotted the murder of her last love, Ragnar. In season five, we meet Vibeke as a child, who was raised by her mother in Iceland as part of a Danish warrior cult. Brida is a loving, loving mother, says Cox, who is grateful to be able to play a softer side to a character whose ax talks about a lot of her.
After their ways part, Brida comes to see Uhtred as a traitor to Dane and to hate him for it, but according to Cox, it's not only the hatred she feels. "So much love for Uhtred, because if you don't really love you really don't hate. She's very, very, very hurt and very, very, very sad and so she does what she does." Is. "
"There's such a deep understanding between them," Cox continues. "Although Uhtred had a lot of women, I personally don't believe that anyone got her as Brida, and she really got Brida." Emotionally speaking, Uhtred is the most important figure in Brida's life apart from her daughter. He's still half of his life and all his madness, as Uhtred described him in season three? "That's how I want to see it for sure."
Uhtred sees Brida the same way, Dreimann says. "He has such a huge internal barrier when he's fighting her because he loves her despite everything she does." Uhtred does not understand the source of Breeda's hatred and hopes to be able to bring her back to the light, despite everything, explains Dreiman. How feasible this will be for a character embroiled in a violent vendetta remains to be seen. Draimon laughs, "Brida is fierce in season five, scary!".
Scary, but also oddly content, says Cox. The season five opener finds Breeda as happy as she can be, with a cult-like army of followers and a mission from the gods. "From his point of view, he has been dealt with great injustice and is ready to take revenge and destroy those who did this to him. Also, from his point of view, this is the right thing to do, because of being Danish or being Viking. Nate, it's the right way to live. She thinks that if she goes to win England, it's a good thing because she's saving people."
Draiman and Cox share the same wish for Brida - for her to find redemption and peace. After a few stunts she still pulls off the final season? Cox agrees. "In a way, Brida finds peace, and I'm very happy with it. There is a strange form of peace, but it is peace."
Has Cox made his peace with filming the final season of The Last Kingdom so far? (A Netflix film, which was not announced at the time we speak and the actors were sworn into secrecy, is currently in production) “It's quite sad. This is the last time I'm wearing these shoes and I'm putting on his clothes and taking his axe. It felt different, knowing I wouldn't be back in Budapest with everyone else, that was the saddest thing about it. ,