She played one of the most memorable characters on Game of Thrones, and was just a teenager
when she landed the role of Sansa Stark.
But since then, Turner has grown up, switched things around, and finally found her voice.
Here's why these days, Sophie Turner is seriously turning heads.
Turner got her start in the biz when she was just 3 years old, thanks to her mom, Sally.
According to the Telegraph, Sally took her daughter to a drama class when she was just
a toddler, and Sophie was hooked.
She told Harper's Bazaar,
"I was always creative from the age of about two.
My best friend and I used to put on plays every time we hung out.
It became something my life revolved around.
[Acting] was like breathing to me."
Turner was also a talented ballet dancer but ended up turning down a spot at the Royal
Ballet School because it conflicted with her acting classes.
She said,
"I think it was a good decision in the end.
I'm a bit too tall and I like pasta too much, so I am not sure I would have gone all the
way to prima ballerina."
"Who is the best dancer in the cast?"
"I put my energy into it, but it's never good, but the dedication is there."
Landing the role of Sansa Stark completely changed Turner's life.
But, initially, she didn't take the audition very seriously.
In fact, she only signed up for the casting because all her friends were doing it.
And she didn't even tell her parents that she was auditioning for the show.
Turner told Jessica Chastain in an interview for Vogue Paris,
"Well, I didn't tell my parents that I auditioned for Game of Thrones."
"Uh.
What?"
"They just kind of found out."
Production had visited schools across the U.K. looking for actors, and one of the schools
she visited was Turner's.
Sophie said,
"Me and all my friends auditioned.
We just thought it was kind of a fun, kind of jokey thing to do.
And we auditioned, and then I just got callback, after callback, after callback."
Turner was already one of the final seven candidates when her parents finally found
out.
While her mom wasn't sure if she should let her daughter go ahead with all of it, Turner's
dad was on board.
"My Dad was like, 'Shut up.
This is what she has wanted her whole life…'"
"Aww!"
"'...You have to let her just give it a go.'"
Turner has a close bond with her family.
Her mother quit her job to move with her to Croatia when Game of Thrones began filming,
and Turner says that her two older brothers are her best friends, revealing to The Telegraph,
"They definitely keep me grounded.
If we watch an episode [of Game of Thrones] at home I'll ask them what they thought and
they'll tell me it was OK.
I need that."
Turner's close bond with her family even inspired her husband, Joe Jonas, to bond with his own
siblings.
After the Jonas Brothers broke up, things were tense between the three bros, but Joe
told Harper's Bazaar,
"It encouraged me to see [Sophie] had such a great relationship with her brothers.
That was really a big thing for me to be able to look at, and say, 'I gotta get my s---
together.'"
While it's not exactly a kid-friendly show, the Thrones cast created a welcoming environment
for the then 13-year-old Turner.
"This has been not only a family to me, but I've grown up with these people.
I've changed so much as a person because of these people."
She bonded with the cast quickly, especially with Maisie Williams, who played her sister,
Arya Stark.
The pair immediately clicked at their chemistry read, with Turner telling Rolling Stone,
"We were pretty much best friends from that second on."
The actress told The New York Times that being with her castmates and the show's crew is
one of the things she will miss most about her experience.
She remembered,
"Every night we would all meet up, crew, cast, everyone, at the bar and have drinks and just
chat and laugh, and it was just a family.
I've never felt such a strong bond with a group of people in my life; I know that they're
going to be my family forever.
I had father figures on the show, like the camera man and the grips and the props guys.
Brotherly figures, hundreds of them."
Becoming famous at such a young age was hard on the young actress.
Added to the media scrutiny was the extreme pressure to conform to a certain beauty standard.
Turner told Marie Claire,
"I have experienced mental illness firsthand and I've seen what it can do to the people
around [the sufferers] as well.
My metabolism suddenly decided to fall to the depths of the ocean and I started to get
spotty and gain weight, and all of this was happening to me on camera."
"I would say, 'Yeah, I am spotty, I am fat, I am a bad actress,' and I just believed it."
Studio execs pushed Turner to lose weight, while internet trolls slammed her relentlessly.
As things grew darker for Turner, she coped by going to therapy.
She said,
"Everyone needs a therapist, especially when people are constantly telling you you're not
good enough and you don't look good enough.
I think it's necessary to have someone to talk to, and to help you through that."
"We're suddenly living in this world where everything is edited and altered, and that's
considered perfect and that's considered, and it's considered achievable."
While Turner didn't mind missing out on some teenage milestones, she does regret that she
wasn't able to go to college.
"I used to pretend I was sick because I wanted to take off school and watch a Spogebob marathon."
She admitted that of course she was happy with her experience on the award-winning show,
but she told Graham Norton in 2019,
"Well, I wish I'd had the university experience.
I wish I'd been able to go out and drink a lot and throw up in the middle of a club and
not get pictured doing it."
While Turner hasn't announced any immediate plans to rectify that regret, she's previously
expressed an interest in furthering her education at some point, so it might be in her future.
In 2015, she told The Telegraph that she'd like to someday pursue a degree in either
history or psychology, but added, quote, "I just don't know when I will have time."
While Turner has enjoyed the benefits that come with an A-list career, growing up as
a celebrity was not without its share of grief.
The actress found it difficult to trust others as she was surrounded by many insincere people.
She told Who magazine,
"I trust very few people and not because I don't warm to people immediately, but I suppose
if you are in the public eye, then you kind of have to protect yourself a bit more.
And so, all the people that I trust are pretty much my family and my friends that I have
had since I was 2 years [old].
They are the people that I trust."
In this way, Turner says she's a lot like her character, Sansa Stark.
She added,
"I don't think Sansa has ever fully trusted anyone, not even in her family."
When Game of Thrones wrapped in 2019, Turner found herself searching for a new purpose.
After working on the show for nearly a decade, just being herself was a challenge for the
young actress.
She told Harper's Bazaar in 2019,
"I'm just coming to terms with it right now, it's like a death in the family.
I'm losing the character I've played so long."
"Winter is here."
Turner ended up taking some time off in order to plan her next steps and to get reacquainted
with herself and her passions outside of acting.
She said,
"I've been trying to figure out what I like to do for myself.
It's been 10 years of playing someone else, and doing what I'm told, and now I'm like
'Hmmm.
Maybe I should find some hobbies.'
I'm passionate about lots of things.
I'll sit in my house in New York and paint.
And I'm doing ballet again."
"Whenever I'm walking down the street, people'll be like 'The North remembers' and I love that.
Makes me feel very empowered."
Until pretty recently, Turner fully expected to live her life alone.
She told Rolling Stone in 2019,
"I was fully preparing myself to be single for the rest of my life.
I think once you've found the right person, you just know.
I feel like I'm much older a soul than I am in age.
I feel like I've lived enough life to know.
I've met enough guys to know, I've met enough girls to know."
Turner elaborated, saying that she's been with girls before and that she doesn't really
think of gender when it comes to choosing a partner.
She said,
"Everyone experiments.
It's part of growing up.
I love a soul, not a gender."
Even though she never envisioned it, Turner tied the knot with Joe Jonas in 2019, after
two years of dating.
"The engagement ring that isn't an engagement ring."
The couple met through the magic of social media, with Sophie telling Harper's Bazaar,
"We had a lot of mutual friends and they'd been trying to introduce us for a long time.
We were following each other on Instagram and he direct-messaged me one fine day, out
of the blue."
That "out of the blue" message clearly worked.
She told the outlet,
"He's the most fun, energetic, positive person I've ever seen.
I'm pessimistic, so we balance each other out."
But Jonas is more than a loving husband.
Turner also credits the singer with helping her turn her life around.
When she met him, she was 20 years old and at the height of her struggles with mental
health.
Sophie told the Sunday Times,
"He was, like, 'I can't be with you until you love yourself, I can't see you love me
more than you love yourself.'
That was something, him doing that.
I think he kind of saved my life, in a way."
One of the biggest ways Turner has transformed since her early days in the spotlight, is
in her activism.
Turner has since grown into a young woman who cares deeply about social justice.
She told Harper's Bazaar,
"Initially, I didn't feel there was anything that stayed with me from all the things Sansa
went through.
But though I think it hasn't affected me emotionally, I did start thinking about the domestic abuse…and
it spurred this little part of me that might be an activist."
"I kind of wanted to get involved with helping women out who kind of have gone through the
same thing, and just making it a discussion in our lives."
Turner is a big supporter of the Me Too movement.
And all of her contracts include a rider which lets her ensure that the workforce is half
male and half female on any project she works on.
Turner is also passionate about destigmatizing mental health, telling Net-a-Porter,
"The first step to any kind of movement is just to put it out there, talk about it and
make it less of a taboo so that people can go and get help and not feel embarrassed to
do so.
People feel so much shame about it, so if, by talking about it, I can even have an impact
on one person, that would be awesome."
While Turner might look classically beautiful, she claims that she's not always glammed up.
In fact, she feels quite comfortable in loungewear and wants to do away with the expectation
that actresses always have to look red carpet ready.
"Comfort's really key.
To happiness."
She told Net-a-Porter,
"There's this expectation for actresses to look good all the time, which is not what
being an actress should be.
It should be about playing a role.
So why should all actresses have to be stick-thin and look beautiful all the time?"
Tuner isn't just frustrated with the expectation to look good in real life, she also hates
the beauty standards that are currently in place for women on screen.
She said,
"Every director is like: 'We really have to fall in love with this character.'
Why does the audience have to fall in love with her?
What if she's a serial killer?
F--- that s---."
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