Gillian Anderson breaks down her 'hilarious' turn on The Great and that outrageous [SPOILER]

Warning: This article contains spoilers about season 2 of The Great.

Gillian Anderson has learned a new word: Defenestration.

"I didn't know what that word was. I had never heard the word 'defenestration' in my whole life, so that was exciting," Anderson tells EW. The term, meaning the act of throwing someone out of a window, was one she picked up in the course of filming season 2 of The Great (now streaming on Hulu).

In it, she plays Joanna, mother of Catherine the Great (Elle Fanning). When word of her daughter's coup against her husband, Peter (Nicholas Hoult), reaches her, Joanna travels to Russia to see what her daughter is up to. She's a tornado of a woman who throws the entire court and all its characters into disarray. And, in one of the show's most shocking moments to date, she seduces her son-in-law, and falls backwards out of a window — mid-coitus! — to her death.

Anderson, who says she first learned of her character's outrageous fate when she read it in the script ("Which is always fun," she says), thought the moment was "hilarious" and she couldn't wait to dig in. "I thought it was brilliant, a brilliant way to end things," she adds.

To do it, three different set-ups were used. One featured the room where she comes on to Peter, and they back up against the wall with the window. The second was the exterior of the palace, with the airbags at the bottom to fall onto. And, yes, Anderson did actually get to fall herself. "I did fall backwards and onto the airbag, which was much fun," she says.

The last set-up involved her actually lying on the dirt. "I think it was at [London's] Hampton Court where the blood is pooling around my head on the grass," she recalls with a chuckle.

It was all good and fun, but Anderson says one of her favorite little details involved not the fall or the curtains she clung to for dear life, but her costume. "One of the things that they did a bit with the costume, which I need to look out for when I watch it again, was that the ruffles underneath the petticoats were a raspberry color, so that when she's flying through the air down towards her demise, the raspberry colored ruffles are floating or ruffling as her feet are kicking in midair," she explains.

That pop of color is not unlike her character, who came in ever so briefly to make a splash. Series creator, writer, and executive-producer Tony McNamara previously told EW that, despite her character's untimely demise, he'd love to have Anderson back any time. When she's told that he said this, Anderson replies, "Did he? Oh, that's funny. Well, I can always be a ghost."

And would she be open to coming back in that capacity? "Oh, totally. Totally open to coming back and haunting the hell out of their schloss," she says.

Related content:

• Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult on Gillian Anderson's arrival in The Great season 2: 'She's a tornado'
• Huzzah! We drank three rounds with The Great stars Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult
• From Russia With Love: The Great stars Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult on their challenging and surprising second season