Game of Thrones is quite literally the biggest show ever, with an ensemble cast as huge as The Mountain. Some actors were as young as 9 or 10 when the shooting began. Now, though we may not see the characters having families outside the show, they do and parents are quite protective of their kids at that young age, especially if the kids are starring in a show like Game of Thrones.
It has been one of those shows which haven’t held back in telling their stories, unabashedly exploring the many faces of the humankind. However taboo the themes may look from the outset, Game of Thrones has managed to touch them closely, intriguing one and all. Sex has been a recurring and omnipresent theme in the show, as it is in real lives too, but the parents of these young actors had a hard time managing that.
Maisie Williamsand Sophie Turner who play the Stark sisters in the fantasy drama were 12 and 13 respectively when the shooting started. Naturally, the girls’ parents were worried given the explicit content of the show. During an interview with The Australian, Maisie Williams talked about one of the sex scenes in the show that was too much for her parents to handle.
A girl reportedly told the newspaper that their mothers (her and Sophie’s) decided to stop shielding them from the show’s graphic sex and violence early on. This happened after the mothers debated taking the girls out of a read-through of a scene with two girls ‘going at it’, and trying to keep them in the dark only served to pique their interest.
The scene in mention is from the seventh episode of the first season, titled ‘You win or You die‘, which has a sequence whereLittlefinger (Petyr Baelish) is training two new recruits in the art of pleasuring the customers.
However, the badass assassin has had her share of violence on the show, fierce to her core and mercilessly slaughtering the people who have wronged her. Albeit the now 21-year old admitted, “The sex was just quite embarrassing and awkward for us. Most of the gory stuff I was part of, and it’s not scary when you’re there shooting it. No one’s really getting their face ripped off. So, it’s quite exciting really.”
In the show, Arya has been away from her family for the longest time. But the actor’s guardian woes don’t seem to end in real life as she often watches the show with her grandmother, who might sometimes find it difficult to gulp down the content onscreen. But Maisie said, “Bless her, my mum just plies her with more and more gin.”
We mostly forget the actors behind the characters and seem to look at them in an out-of-the-world light. But it’s certainly drastic to have grown up with such exposure at a young age. What do you think? Tell us in the comments below.
