Maisie Williams “resented” her Game Of Thrones character as she reached puberty, the actor has revealed.
The 24-year-old was cast as Arya Stark a few months after her 12th birthday in 2009 and appeared in all eight series until the fantasy drama finished in 2019.
In a new interview with GQ Style, Maisie reflected on becoming an adult while filming the show explaining she found it difficult not be able to “express who she was becoming”.
Recalling the day she was handed a bra in the costume trailer, she said: “I think that when I started becoming a woman, I resented Arya because I couldn’t express who I was becoming.
“And then I also resented my body, because it wasn’t aligned with the piece of me that the world celebrated.”
Maisie also said she was “grateful” to be “protected” from having to walk the red carpet for Game Of Thrones until until the launch of season three in Los Angeles in 2013.
“If that had happened when I was 12, I’m not sure what that would have done to me mentally,” she said.
In a 2017 interview with Rolling Stone, Maisie said she experienced a “dip in confidence” around the same time.
“At 12, I was fearless and didn’t care, so I really enjoyed it. But then, as each season passed, the pressure built and it became a little destructive,” she said.
“Everyone goes through that dip in confidence. That also came with puberty. It all fizzled out a bit, and I lost my confidence, and now I’m slowly starting to get it back again.”
Read the interview with Maisie in the GQ Style spring/summer 2022 issue available on Thursday.