Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams remembers early turmoil in her relationship with her father. “I had that feeling of impending doom and I didn’t know how to make that go away.”
Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) recently appeared on The Diary of a CEO podcast with Steven Bartlett. As an experienced actor and a successful entrepreneur, Williams has a lot to contribute to any discussion about work, life and…well, just about anything, but this interview is mostly getting attention because of what she says about her early years.
“Well, I, as a young child before the age of, like, 8, had a traumatic relationship with my dad,” Williams said, sharing that the relationship left her unable to sleep at night. She didn’t into too much detail about exactly what happened in order to protect her siblings, but said that she didn’t realize what was happening to her was wrong at the time. “I had that feeling of impending doom and I didn’t know how to make that go away.”
According to Williams, it was only after a teacher intervened that she was able to see the situation more clearly. “When I was about 8, there was quite a complex string of events that happened, but basically it had met its peak and I was at school and I was really struggling.”
At the same time, recognizing the problem wasn’t the end. Tearful, Williams compared her home life to being in a cult, saying she was “indoctrinated in a way.” Despite what was happening, she didn’t want to be taken away from her father at the age of 8. “All your problems don’t just go away, you still care a lot about that person, or the pain that led to those very, very poor decisions,” she said. “It made me more interested in the guy. What could make you mistreat your own children? What happened to you as a kid? Did you pull the legs off bugs? Did you learn all this?”
Williams will playing Catherine Dior in the upcoming Apple TV+ series The New Look, which is set against the backdrop of Paris in World War II. She’s also an entrepreneur who helped found Daisie, a social networking platform meant to help creative professionals build their careers.
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