As part of its series of as-told-to interviews with adult actresses, Cosmo has an essay by Samantha Bentley, who, besides her award-winning work for Harmony Films, Brazers, and Pure XXX, has also played a prostitute in two episodes of Game of Thrones. (She was in a bath with Salladhor Saan in season four, and played the Volantis prostitute who dressed as Daenerys in season five — not that you remember those scenes.) Just like porn, it turns out that Thrones also requires a naked audition. “I got a call saying, ’Game of Thrones wants you to read for this scene for season four,’†Bentley writes. “My friend had to film me in the buff reading the lines for the scene and we had to email the video to the casting directors.†After not hearing back for a while, she traveled to Spain for a porn shoot, only to be told at the last minute she’d gotten the Thrones gig. She cut the shoot short and flew straight to Belfast: â€[The porn studio] were pissed off with me, but they actually made a whole big thing about me being in Game of Thrones when they released the scenes, so it benefitted them.â€
On set, Bentley says she was amazed with the immense scale of the production, and openly wept when given the chance to return a year later. There, she was fitted for an assless version of Daenerys’s famous blue dress — a look she calls “really iconic in the series†— and sat on set with Peter Dinklage. “I was really excited to shoot a scene with Tyrion,†she recalls. “Shooting it was kind of nerve-racking because there were so many people in that scene. Obviously I’ve done porn, but on porn sets everyone’s naked. On the Game of Thrones set, I’m walking around with my ass out and everyone’s eyes are on me. The pressure!â€