When it comes to big meetings between characters, Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen have gotten a lot of press this year. But fans have also been waiting since season 1 to see embattled sisters Sansa and Arya Stark reunite. It finally happened in “The Spoils of War,” last night’s new episode of Game of Thrones, and actors Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams talked to Entertainment Weekly all about it.
Turner first found out that she would be acting alongside Williams when she read the scripts for season 7, which she got access to while filming another movie. “I was like in a corner scrolling on my phone and I was so overwhelmed by [Bran and Sansa and Arya] meeting again,” she said. “So I was sitting in the corner going, ‘Ahhh!’ and everybody there was fans of the show and going ‘What is it?!’ And I rang Maisie up and was like, ‘Can you believe it? It’s amazing!’”
Turner and Williams are very good friends in real life. They got matching tattoos of the date on which they were hired for Game of Thrones, and spent so much time together that fans have given them their own portmanteau: Mophie. But when it came time to shoot together for the first time in years, that familiarity made things a little weird. “Our first scene together was our reunion scene and we f—ed up so many times,” Turner said. “We couldn’t keep a straight face! Our relationship is so close, but it’s only that fun side, never the business side. I was nervous. It just terrified me. It’s like performing for your mom. When somebody is watching you don’t do it quite as well.”
Williams agreed that it was odd.
It was the weirdest thing when we shot our first scene together. We were both embarrassed to do our thing in front of each other. It took a few hours for us to get serious and actually do it. Later it was fine on set and we could concentrate, but it was so hard to get into character with Sophie in front of me.
Things got easier as shooting went on, and by the end, the actors were able to use their close relationship to their advantage: “We’re not afraid to go there with each other because we feel so comfortable around each other,” Turner said.
As for what the future holds for the Stark sisters, Williams and Turner were staying mum, although Williams is hoping fans don’t revert to the perspectives they had back in season 1, when the characters and the actors alike were often compared to each other:
I don’t do scenes with women much on this show and I thought [the reaction to season 7] would be like back in season 1 where people constantly compared us. We’re two completely different girls playing two completely different characters and I thought, ‘Well, it’s going to be that all over again, with people comparing us as characters and as actors.’ So, in the beginning, I was nervous. But then my brain took over and I realized this is actually going to be really good fun.
I tend to think fans will take a different tack this time around, too. Sansa and Arya have been through a lot since the last time they met, and although they were often at odds in season 1, they seemed to put their differences aside when they reunited in “The Spoils of War.” As for Turner and Williams, what can you say about girls who have this much fun together?
We’ll see what the sisters get up to in the as-yet-untitled fifth episode of Game of Thrones season 7, coming next Sunday.
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