Growing Up Game Of Thrones: Turner, Williams and More

One of the striking things about the original A Song of Ice and Fire series is the young age of many of the protagonists. Although Ned Stark, Catelyn Stark, and Tyrion Lannister are all full-grown adults (even though Tyrion can be rather immature when we first meet him), the rest of the main characters are children. Bran Stark is 7 in the novels. Arya is 9, Sansa is 11, and Robb and Jon Snow are both all of 14. Joffrey Barantheon is 12. At 19, Theon is the oldest.

Now, due to the books’ content (and our pesky modern morals), the producers behind the show chose to age many of these characters up. For instance, they made Robb and Jon and Theon all of an age. Joffrey is slightly older in the series, but not by much. Bran is pushed up to the ripe old age of 10. But Sansa and Arya needed to stay the ages they were for plot reasons (Sansa can’t have hit puberty, Arya needs to be able to pass for a boy). That meant that Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams were kids when they were cast–13 and 12, respectively. Since then, they’ve spent their teenage years growing up on the hit show, and according to their joint interview in the NYT today, they’re still extremely close.

Check out what they had to say about growing up on Game of Thrones, below! Plus, Kerry Ingram (Shireen Baratheon) discusses what’s in store for her character in Season 5, and Aimee Richardson (formerly Myrcella Baratheon) talks about what it’s like to find oneself recast.

Sophie Turner, for one, is thankful to be reaching grown up status, and no longer having to play a pawn in everyone’s game.

“She’s a powerful young woman now,” Ms. Turner said. “Rather than being a pawn in everyone else’s game, she’s playing her own.”

Maisie says it’s hard to know what life would be like without the show.

“People say, ‘Do you ever miss being a normal teenager?’ And we don’t really know what that is, I guess,” Ms. Williams said. “Because this is normal.”

One of the big changes for the two actresses this season was the location swap. Up until now, Sansa has been in King’s Landing, which films in Croatia, and Arya in the North, which films in Ireland. This year, Sansa is now in the North and Ireland, while Arya has crossed the narrow sea to Braavosi and Croatia. Though they seem to always end up filming on separate continents, they still find time to hang out wherever they can. Maisie calls them a “little girl gang.”

“Our other friends don’t 100 percent get it,” Ms. Williams said. “Sometimes it is nice to just be with the one person who does.”

“No one else gets it like you get it,” Ms. Turner said to her, sincerely, before turning playfully mawkish: “No one gets me like you do.”

Elsewhere on the Internet, Kerry Ingram talks about how being on the show has been an educational experience as a growing actor.

Meanwhile, Aimee Richardson is clearly is sad to be off the show, and talks about how great the experience was. The adults were very kind to her, but what I note is how she doesn’t talk about learning the acting craft, but more about the dresses and the make up. But she’s pretty mature about it, and accepts that recasting is part of the job. (Also, I had no idea how thick her accent is.)

• Published on 04/01/2015 at 11:00 AM CDT
• Last updated on 10/21/2016 at 1:05 PM CDT