Maisie Williams has opened up on having to learn about the harsh world of Hollywood rejection now, over a year after finishing up her decade-long tenure as Arya Stark on Game Of Thrones.
The 23-year-old landed a starring part on the HBO fantasy epic when she was only 12 years old, and has revealed it wasn’t until she left the show at 22 she realised how sucky rejection was when going for other projects.
She told The Telegraph: ‘It is almost harder because I had never been told no. The second thing that I ever auditioned for was Game of Thrones, and that launched my career. There’s always competition, it doesn’t matter how much you’ve done, you will always lose out on roles.
‘The industry is built upon rejection. I’m definitely learning that now – how to overcome the rejection and not see it as a personal thing. But learning to be told no is really difficult as someone who’s an established actor. No one’s got time for you when you’re like, “Oh I didn’t get the part in this thing.” They’re like, “You just came off the most successful TV show of the decade, can you hang on a minute?”’
That’s not to say she’s not absolutely killing it since emerging from the series as an icon, having landed roles in The New Mutants (which, while filmed in 2017, is only hitting screens now) as well as Sky Atlantic’s Two Weeks To Live.
Maisie went on: ‘I do have a bit of a plan for the first time. Through my whole career I haven’t set any goals, and it’s been fine, but recently I’ve been like, “OK, let’s try and manipulate this situation we’re in and nail down some things I want to do.”
‘It’s been really helpful, even from a mental health perspective, feeling like there’s some sort of direction. I’m not just floating through the world and waiting to see. Now I’ve got an idea.’
The star recently spoke about the pitfalls of finding such immense fame at a young age when you have no sodding idea who you are yet.
Chatting to The Independent, Maisie explained: ‘Even when I was 12, people were like, “Ooh, are you gonna get a drug habit and ruin your life?” That is the problem, I guess.
‘The fact that you’re doing interviews when you’re 12 and no one’s ever addressing why that’s a really difficult and dangerous thing for you to do.
‘Everybody wants you to have an opinion on something when you don’t know who you are yet.’
She added: ‘People just want to go where the money and drama is. I wanted to really protect myself. It’s a minefield [and] it’s a challenge every single day.’
MORE: Maisie Williams claims Game of Thrones alternate ending saw Jon Snow kill the Night King
