Keisha Castle-Hughes Takes to the Boxing Ring

She shot to fame as the fierce warrior Obara Sand on Game Of Thrones. But New Zealander Keisha-Castle Hughes, 28, will now flex her acting muscles in a different kind of drama, when she stars as a boxer in a “sexy, gritty” four-part TV show called, The Ropes.

Castle-Hughes will share the screen with acting legend Jack Thompson and Romper Stomper actor Nicole Chamoun.

She plays hard-nosed fighter Jess O’Connor, who fights in a professional debut match thanks to her Iraqi-Australian trainer Amirah (Chamoun).

It’s a change from her last role as warrior Obara Sand in the fifth, sixth, and seventh seasons of Game Of Thrones.

Castle-Hughes played the eldest of eight bastard daughters of Oberyn Martell and was trained on how to wield a spear for the role.

“I was really lucky. I’m half Māori and so I’ve worked a lot in my life with a taiaha which is a Māori weapon very similar to the spear,” she told Variety in 2015.

“So it wasn’t completely foreign to me to have that in my hand, which was really nice.”

Original article by Ekin Karasin, Daily Mail, May 21, 2018.