How ‘Lord of the Flies’ Pulled Off Piggy’s Emotional Death on an ‘Uninhabited’ Island: ‘It Makes Me Cry Every Time’

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for “Lord of the Flies,” now streaming on Netflix.

Fans of William Golding’s classic 1954 book “Lord of the Flies,” about a group of schoolboys stranded on a tropical island, will surely anticipate Piggy’s (also known as Nicky) death coming in the new four-part series from showrunner, writer and executive producer Jack Thorne.

“In the book, he dies instantly. It’s a real shock. It comes out of nowhere and I think what Jack Thorne’s done rather cleverly is to prolong his death so that we can see the relationship between Ralph and Piggy sort of persists,” director and executive producer Marc Munden said during Variety‘s Making a Scene presented by HBO Max.

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The heartbreaking scene follows Ralph (Winston Sawyers) as he watches his friend Piggy (David McKenna) die, followed by Ralph carrying Piggy’s body through the forest. It’s a crucial scene to the heart of the show as Thorne wanted to land Ralph’s character development from treating Piggy poorly to “learning that, actually, he is a human being with a heart a mile wild.”

Thorne broke down why filming the scene wasn’t just emotionally difficult: “We were completely stupid! We were ridiculous to shoot it where we did. It was an island that wasn’t just difficult to get to, it was uninhabited. It took us a boat ride to get there and then when we were there, we were cutting holes with machetes in order for cameras to be able to get through. But Mark was insistent that the island be a character in the show.”

To prepare for the scene, McKenna and Sawyers had read the scene early in rehearsals, but didn’t film it until the end of the shoot. On the day, McKenna said, “I try my best to stay quiet, and try to think of something that would get me sad and weak.” He added, “I had to give my weight to Winston.”

“I had fake blood in my hair, and because we were filming in such humid heat, halfway through the day, I lifted a massive chunk of my hair and the blood was stuck to it,” McKenna explained. “So that was the joy of filming!”

McKenna said the more takes he did of the scene, the more “draining” it became to film. Munden added that “people were in pieces behind the monitors. I was on my own with the boys, and there was a sort of hushed reverence about them. I have to say that I directed those boys in the way that I would direct adults … They came to it with an aptitude which was startling.”

Thorne wasn’t on set when the scene was filmed but praises Munden for his visual approach to the emotional moment. “There’s something very extraordinary about how Marc directs this scene, and I think it’s all about restraint. Marc sits back where other people would would lean in. He gives space, and you see so much of this is contained in a two shot rather than a one shot, and I think that’s really powerful.”

Thorne reflected on the “joy” of working with young, new talent, and admitted he still gets emotional when rewatching Piggy’s death.

“It makes me cry every time. Watching this thing makes me cry every time,” he said. “Each time I watch it, I see a new detail on those two actors’ faces.”

Watch the video above.