Maisie Williams is all grown up. At only 22 years of age, the Game of Thrones star has created a tech start up called Daisie alongside film producer and friend Dom Santry. (It’s a combination of their names — geddit?) It’s a social media platform designed to help creative individuals share their work and find people to work with. She already has some impressive VCs backer her up and 120,000+ users on board.
Speaking to AngelList, Williams talked about how she managed to film the final season of Game of Thrones and manage Daisie’s increasing demands. “When I was shooting, Dom and I would have to FaceTime at 11 p.m.,” she remembered. “So many huge decisions were made over FaceTime. When I finished the show, I went straight to the office, every day, until we launched our MVP.”
Now that the show has finished, people are asking, ‘What if nobody cares about you anymore? What if everything goes away?’ I have confidence everything is going to be great. Sometimes I get a real fire in my belly when people think it’s not going my way. Having that ability to be able to overcome it, though, is so important—to have that belief in yourself.
You might not immediately think that Williams, an actor, would have a ton to offer a tech startup. That was Williams’ first thought, anyway. But after she figured out that Santry could handle the technical side of things and she could focus on branding and community building, it all fell into place. And as it ends up, auditioning for roles prepares you pretty well to talk to potential investors and employees, and being on a set as hectic as Game of Thrones prepared her well for the startup experience.
While Maisie Williams becomes the next Mark Zuckerberg, Kristian Nairn (Hodor) just jetted off to the city of Hyderabad, India as part of his Evolution tour, per The Hindu Metroplus. For in addition to being an actor, Nairn is also a DJ, and will be visiting the U.S. in October. The Hindu Metroplus spoke to him about what to expect from the new music in his. “One of the biggest evolutions is that most of my set consists of my own music now. Believe me, that is something that I’ve been working towards for a very long time, and its a great feeling!”
Isaac Hempstead Wright, who spent many an hour strapped to Nairn’s back as Bran Stark back when they were shooting Game of Thrones, is out and about, too. In an interview with Penguin Books UK, Wright reflected on the five books that helped him grow into the person he is today. With all the downtime one has between shots on set, there’s plenty of time to catch up on your reading.
What people don’t realise about being on TV is that only about 25 per cent of it is filming and acting. The rest is sitting around waiting for things to happen. On the Game of Thrones set, I used to find myself twiddling my thumbs or wasting hours on my phone. Then I realised I had this luxurious opportunity to read. My Mum’s bookshelf is where I discovered Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932). To be fair, it’s where I found most of the books on this list.
The other books on Wright’s list include Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut, The London Nobody Knows by Geoffrey Fletcher and Franz Liszt: Musician, Celebrity, Superstar by Oliver Hilmes.
Wright likes some heady stuff, typical for the Three-Eyed Raven. (He still gets recognized, by the way. “I went and bought a coffee the other day and the guy said: ‘there you go, Your Grace’. I thought: I’ll take it!”) Getting ideas for your next read?
To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.
Watch Game of Thrones for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels
h/t Inc.
