Maisie Williams recently sat down for a Q&A session with Rolling Stone where she discusses portraying Arya Stark and how she handles working with such challenging material.
Arya‘s been exposed to so much violence that of course she would look at it that way. When you want something done, you just do it.
It’s changed her, especially being at Harrenhal [the Lannister stronghold/torture prison from Season Two]and seeing all that. She realizes that even if she’s fair about things, the rest of the world isn’t. If she wants something done, she’s going to have to do it herself. That’s the way everybody works, so she’s going to have to match them. Otherwise, she’s going to fall behind.
She obviously has family on her mind in this episode. But when she tells Gendry “I can be your family,” it sounds like she might mean something very different – even if she herself barely realizes it yet.
When I first read that scene, it really got to me. I always knew that Arya and Gendry were going to take separate paths, but when you actually see it. . . I was really getting on well with Joe [Dempsie], and it was just like “Oh, this is going to end now.” Then you go in do it. At first I read it as “You can come to Winterfell, I’ll show you how everything goes, and you can come and sit at the table with us.” I thought it would be a bit like Theon. But when I was doing the scene, [director]Alex Graves said “When you say that last line, ‘I can be your family,’ say it like ‘I love you.'” And that’s the take that they used. On the day, we didn’t cut in between. We kept going, and going, and going again, which I really liked; otherwise, you get out of it and you have to try and build yourself back up to that point again. Sometimes I was really crying, and then we’d pull it back. I don’t know how many we did, but the last one we did…We settled on the one when I said it like “I love you,” and it really works.
I’m glad you brought up her Stark upbringing, because in this episode, she makes her most direct reference yet to her father. When you take it out of context, “Could you bring back a man without a head?” sounds grotesque or even absurd. But when you hear her say it, the need for her dad in her voice is so strong, it takes your breath away.
I know. You see this vulnerable side to her. Putting myself – someone my age – in that scene, I’m watching all of the scars that [Beric Dondarrion] shows her, all these different injuries that he’s had, and she realizes that there’s nothing actually missing. He didn’t lose an arm or anything – it’s just cuts and stuff. She thinks, “Well, maybe that isn’t possible, because…I don’t know if the head goes back on, or…” But she has to ask the question. It’s a bit of an. . . I don’t know. I don’t want to say an immature question, but she half doesn’t believe it, really. She knows that you can’t, she understands that, but it’s that vulnerable side, you know? “Is it possible to do that?” She doesn’t really think you can. You see a younger side to her then, and how much pain she’s in.
I’m glad you brought up her Stark upbringing, because in this episode, she makes her most direct reference yet to her father. When you take it out of context, “Could you bring back a man without a head?” sounds grotesque or even absurd. But when you hear her say it, the need for her dad in her voice is so strong, it takes your breath away.
I know. You see this vulnerable side to her. Putting myself – someone my age – in that scene, I’m watching all of the scars that [Beric Dondarrion] shows her, all these different injuries that he’s had, and she realizes that there’s nothing actually missing. He didn’t lose an arm or anything – it’s just cuts and stuff. She thinks, “Well, maybe that isn’t possible, because…I don’t know if the head goes back on, or…” But she has to ask the question. It’s a bit of an. . . I don’t know. I don’t want to say an immature question, but she half doesn’t believe it, really. She knows that you can’t, she understands that, but it’s that vulnerable side, you know? “Is it possible to do that?” She doesn’t really think you can. You see a younger side to her then, and how much pain she’s in.
Complete story can be found here.
