They are as different as chalk and cheese, but also deeply connected. As far as generic medieval fantasy female characters are concerned, Sansa and Arya are a lot more layered and complex, and crucial to the larger scheme of the story. In this Rolling Stones interview, A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin talks about the long quest to find the perfect Stark sisters and how they finally ended up with Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams.
Martin says that they were very clear from the outset that what they do not want is just a couple of pretty faces. In his words,
“These are not parts that require the girls to be cute, and deliver clever little one-liners to put down their idiot father, like you do in a sitcom. These are girls that are gonna go through really huge personal traumas. They’re gonna see death and war. They’re gonna see people close to them beheaded.”
Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams as Sansa and Arya in a still from the upcoming Episode 3 of Game of Thrones Season 8.
The major hurdle in this quest, Martin reveals, was the casting of Arya. It was, Martin says, “particularly difficult, as I somewhat feared it would be; I think we looked at more potential Aryas than any other role in this show.” That is perhaps because Arya is very unlike what women were expected to be in the Middle Ages (from which ASOIF draws inspirations).
Martin says he based Arya on many women he has known in his youth – the 60’s and the 70’s – and the character has echoes of the Feminist Movement. There were hundreds of auditions, but that right mix of spunk and innocence was nowhere to be found, until they saw little Maisie. Martin remembers,
“I saw Maisie’s tape, and it was like, “There she is. There she is. Arya.” She’s saying the lines, she’s alive, she’s got Arya’s spirit, you know? ] It was incredible. David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] and I said, “Yeah, we found her, hooray. Send up the skyrockets.”
Sansa’s casting was relatively easy, but they were no less happy with Sophie Turner because of that. What Martin particularly loved was how quickly Sophie and Maisie bonded. They instantly took to each other, during the audition itself.
Maisie was in fact so impressed with Sophie that she apparently told her mother, “I don’t know if I’m gonna get it or not, but I hope this other girl I met there gets it because she’s great.”
Sansa and Arya clashed a lot in the beginning, but seven seasons and eight years later, they have finally learned to work together and bond as a family. The bond that Sophie and Maisie had formed on their first meeting, however, has only grown from strength to strength. For instance, Maisie will be Maid of Honour to Sophie when she ties the knot this year. Martin does sound like a proud grandpa when he says,
“These young women have grown up together. They’ve become sisters, I think, in more than just the script. And the friendship that they’ve forged, that will endure.”
