Disclaimer: This post contains a mild spoiler for last night’s episode of Game of Thrones.
Game of Thrones audiences were a little surprised last night during the second episode of the show’s final season. Sure, it had its typical twists and turns, but the show also saw Arya Stark sleep with someone for the first time ever. More specifically, Gendry. Sure, we’ve seen her kill countless people over the course of the seven-plus seasons, but given how we’ve seen her grow up from a young kid, it was quite the shock to many viewers, who apparently went online in droves to see how old the actress truly was (for the record, she’s 22).
But audiences weren’t the only one surprised by what took place in the episode. Actresses Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams were sent the scripts for the season at the same time, and according to EW, Turner was the first one to actually read through them first, and when she got to the scene in question, the first thing she did was tell Williams, who apparently didn’t believe it to be real.
“At first, I thought it was a prank,” Williams told the outlet. In the past, showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss had sent prank scripts to the cast, so she naturally thought this was one of those moments. “I was like, ‘Yo, good one.’ And [the showrunners were] like, ‘No, we haven’t done that this year.’ Oh f—k!”
“I got to the read-through and I’m reading the scene and thought, ‘Oh, we’re actually going to do this. When do I shoot this? I need to go to the gym.’ A whole list of things.”
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In terms of how much they decided to show, it sounds like that was mostly up to Williams.
“David and Dan were like: ‘You can show as much or as little as you want. So I kept myself pretty private. I don’t think it’s important for Arya to flash. This beat isn’t really about that. And everybody else has already done it on the show, so… “
Williams, of course, is right. The point of the scene isn’t just to exist for the hell of it. After seasons and seasons of her becoming increasingly feral, this experience with the character Gendry is one that helped bring her back to her more human side.
Speaking to that, Williams said:
“It was really interesting because it’s a very human relationship for Arya. This is something she’s stayed away from, an emotion we’ve never really seen her engage with. David and Dan were like, ‘It’s the end of the world, what else would you have her do?’ This may be is a moment where Arya accepts death tomorrow, which she never does — ‘Not Today.’ So it was that moment where she says, ‘We’re probably going to die tomorrow, I want to know what this feels like before that happens.’ It’s interesting to see Arya be a bit more human, speak more normally about things people are scared of.”
What did you think of last night’s episode? And if you’ve missed our recap from resident Game of Thrones expert Cam Clark, be sure to check it out HERE!
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SOURCE: EW
