It's impossible to imagine anyone but Maisie Williams playing Arya Stark on HBO's hit series
Game of Thrones after watching her troubled character grow up on the small screen.
Still, there's probably a lot you don't know about the young actress behind that iconic,
stoic glare.
An unconventional path
In order to dedicate all of her time and attention to her first legit acting gig in Game of Thrones,
Williams left school at the age of 14.
To be considered employable in the U.K., you need to get at least a C in a minimum of five
GCSEs, but Williams has a grand total of zero.
British tabloids honed in on this fact when it was made public, but the teen actress'
mother, Hilary, was quick to defend the family's decision, explaining to the Daily Mail:
"Maisie was given a lot of opportunities that we didn't feel we could turn down to concentrate
on education.
I know a lot of people wouldn't agree with that, but that's what we decided to do.
At the time, Maisie was filming, [...] she didn't have the time to sit her exams."
It's not that Williams' mother doesn't value education.
In fact, she worked as a university course administrator before giving up her job to
work as her daughter's personal assistant.
However, Hilary believes there are other paths to take in life, though she also noted that
Williams can always head back to school and complete her GCSEs if she decides to in the
future.
Empathizing with her bullies
Maisie Williams did return to school to try and finish her GCSEs a few seasons into Game
of Thrones.
Sadly, she soon discovered that being mega famous made her an instant target for bullies.
According to InStyle, Williams was subjected to, quote, "brutal online bullying" from classmates,
which forced her to quit school for a second time and hire private tutors instead.
She explained:
"I struggled with the pressure to fit in and always worried about saying the right thing.
It was strange because I put on the personality of the girl who was 'Maisie Williams' but
really struggled in my personal life."
She went into more detail about that tough time in her life when she spoke to The Guardian
in 2018, telling the British newspaper that she went through a, quote, "really dark phase
[that made her] really bitter about life and people" when she returned to full-time education.
That's all in the past, however, and unlike her famously vengeful Game of Thrones character,
Williams doesn't hold any grudges.
In fact, she kind of understands where her bullies where coming from.
She told InStyle:
"I don't want to excuse anyone's behaviour, but being 15 and feeling threatened by someone
who's successful, that seems like quite a human thing."
Sisters on and off screen
Maisie Williams and actress Sophie Turner who plays her on-screen sister, Sansa
Stark clicked instantly when they met at Game of Thrones auditions, and they've become genuine
besties.
When the pair sat down for a chat with Rolling Stone some eight years after they were cast,
Williams said that she was in awe of Turner when they met.
The actress dished:
"I thought Sophie was the coolest thing I'd ever seen.
I get why they do chemistry reads, because when it's right, it's so right.
Like, we're best friends.
And they could see that all those years ago."
The girls became so close, so quickly that they were distraught at the thought of the
pilot not getting picked up.
During a joint interview, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss said:
"We remember the both of them bawling and hugging each other, because they loved each
other so much after only a few short weeks, and were afraid they'd never see each other
again."
" … Everyone's like, 'Oh it's so nice, you girls are back together again.'
And I was like, 'Just you wait, because by week two you're going to hate us, because
we're very annoying when we're together."
A killer day on set
Arya Stark dispatched more than 60 people during Game of Thrones' run, many of them
in shocking and memorable ways.
Who could forget how she put her training at the House of Black and White to use when
exacting revenge on Walder Frey?
"When people ask you what happened here, tell them the North remembers."
Of course, her most famous kill is a no-brainer: She took out The Night King when all seemed
lost in Season 8.
But neither of those kills are her favorite.
Speaking to The Guardian, Williams revealed that her all-time favorite was the killing
of sadistic child abuser Meryn Trant, though Trant's in-story crimes have nothing to do
with her decision.
Williams opened up about the memorable kill, saying:
"I had turned 16 then, so I had just started being able to work adult hours.
When the scene ran over, we were able to stay overtime.
[...] Every time they went overtime, they ordered pizza.
We're talking a crew of 100 people, so this is a lot of pizza!"
It wasn't that it was particularly good pizza it was more to do with the fact that she was
munching on it while clutching a fake dagger covered in fake blood.
She continued:
"I remember thinking: 'Wow, this is my life, I've given up school for this,' and just thinking
it was the coolest thing ever.
So that was a fun death."
Fame took its toll
When she appeared as a guest on the Happy Place podcast in 2019, Maisie Williams opened
up about her mental health and how she became addicted to reading people's criticisms of
her online.
She confessed:
"It got to me a lot, because there's just a constant feed in your back pocket of what
people think of you.
It gets to a point where you're almost craving something negative so you can sit in a hole
of sadness, and it's really bizarre the way it starts to consume you."
Williams admitted that some of her issues remain, explaining:
"I still lie in bed at 11 o'clock at night telling myself all the things I hate about
myself."
Fortunately, the actress has made a great deal of progress just by taking some time
away.
When she uses social media now, she urges people to be respectful of one another, though
it doesn't always pan out that way and she acknowledged that when she quipped,
"If you're trying to teach manners on the internet, you've got another thing coming."
A personal project
Maisie Williams has shown her support for numerous charities and worthy causes since
becoming famous, but there's one cause in particular that's clearly very close to her
heart.
In 2016, she used Instagram to document her second trip to Japan to raise awareness about
the controversial Taiji dolphin hunt.
The event made headlines worldwide in 2009 when a documentary titled The Cove exposed
the horrifying annual practice of hunting and capturing thousands of dolphins a tradition
that most Japanese citizens were allegedly not even aware was occurring.
Williams is urging everyone to stop attending dolphin shows, which she says fuel the hunting
in Japan.
The actress explained:
"These animals travel the ocean.
That's what they explore daily.
No tank will be big enough.
No tank will ever be deep enough, ever be exciting enough."
Her campaigning seemed to have some positive effect, with the number of dolphins killed
among the lowest numbers observed in recent years, according to a report by the Sea Shepherd
organization.
A commitment to the arts
Despite the downsides to fame, Maisie Williams is well aware that she's one of the lucky
ones.
Landing a role on any show is a dream come true for young actors, never mind an HBO epic.
Williams thought there should be a platform for aspiring creatives from every corner of
the industry to collaborate, so she went ahead and made it.
"Industry leaders in film, fashion, music, photography, literature, and art will be coming
onto the app and answering your questions about how they made it."
With the help of camera assistant friend Don Santry, the actress created Daisie, an app
that provides a, quote, "safe place for people to upload their work even if it's just an
idea, without being criticised."
The actress told i-D:
"We celebrate what an idea could become rather than something polished and final.
As much as possible we try and suggest others in the community who can help with the project
you are working on."
The Daisie office is located in London's Shoreditch area, a new mecca for digital startups.
Williams already has her own staff at her disposal, though by her own admission, she
sometimes has to wing it a little.
She joked to The Guardian:
"I sometimes find myself in very grown-up situations and I'm like: 'Who thought this
was a good idea?'
But if there's one thing Game of Thrones taught me, it's how to pretend!"
An uncomfortable scene
"We're probably going to die soon.
I ought to know what it's like before that happens."
One of the most jaw-dropping moments from Game of Thrones Season 8 was Arya hooking
up with Gendry, played by the much older Joe Dempsie.
In 2019, a 31-year-old Dempsie told Entertainment Weekly:
"It's obviously slightly strange for me because I've known Maisie since she was 11, 12 years
old.
At the same time, I don't want to be patronizing toward Maisie she's a 20-year-old woman.
So we just had a lot of fun with it."
Fun isn't a word that Williams would use to describe the experience, however.
When it came to filming the scene, those present were, quote, "really respectful" about the
whole thing, but that didn't stop it from getting super awkward.
Williams dished:
"No one wants to make you feel uncomfortable which kind of makes you feel more uncomfortable,
because no one wants to look at anything that they shouldn't look at, which in turn makes
you feel like you look awful."
She first learned about the shocking scene from co-star Sophie Turner, who called Williams
the second she read the script and apparently said, quote, "Whatever you do, you have to
skip to this episode, this scene first."
When the episode aired, rumors about a body double made the rounds, but Williams seemed
to dispel these when she revealed that she had permission to, quote, "show as much or
as little" as she wanted.
That controversial cameo
The negative reaction to Season 8 of Game of Thrones means it will go down in history
as the worst-rated season of them all, but there were a number of people who picked faults
with Season 7, too.
The most offensive moment to the masses was arguably in the Season 7 opener when British
pop star Ed Sheeran inexplicably pops up among a group of Lannister soldiers.
"For hands of gold are always cold, but a woman's hands are ...."
"That's a pretty song."
He wasn't the first famous person to make a cameo, but in the past, those appearances
had been subtle.
This was anything but.
Sheeran's uncomfortable delivery of his lines left viewers shaking their heads, and it turns
out, they've got Maisie Williams to thank for it.
According to showrunner David Benioff, the show reached out to Sheeran with sweet intentions.
"We knew that Maisie was a big fan of Ed Sheeran and for years we've been trying to get him
on the show so we can surprise Maisie.
This year we finally did it."
Benioff seemed triumphant as he explained the origins of Sheeran's jarring cameo, but
the backlash from fans was severe.
Sheeran may have even deleted his Twitter account due to the online abuse.
The singer later joked that showrunners should kill off his character just to appease insulted
fans, and he appeared to get his wish.
It was confirmed that his character had "his face burned right off" prior to the Season
8 premiere.
According to a woman in the episode, quote, "He's got no eyelids now."
She "didn't do too bad"
After experiencing the ups and downs of fame early in life, Maisie Williams wants to regain
some normalcy now that Game of Thrones is done.
Of course, Williams isn't about to disappear from the industry.
She debuts as Wolfsbane in the X-Men movie The New Mutants, and she's also starring in
The Owners, a thriller set in the '90s.
When it comes to cementing herself as a Hollywood A-lister, however, Williams just isn't interested.
She told The Guardian:
"My agents say things to me like, 'We'll raise your profile,' and I don't really understand
what that means because to me it sounds like getting a whole lot more famous, which is
something I'm not interested in.
If [Game of Thrones] is the greatest thing I ever do, I did OK.
I didn't do too bad."
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