Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner recently did a cover shoot for Elle UK, which has given her a chance to reflect on her time as Sansa Stark nearly a year out from the show’s series finale. And also the photos are fun.
The full Elle interview is out now. Turner — who’s full name is Sophie Belinda Jonas now, by the way — talks about a lot of stuff, from her relationship with husband Joe Jonas to her new Quibi show, Survive, but we were most interested in what she had to say about GoT. As it ends up, she hasn’t actually watched the very controversial ending to the show. “I started watching when the last season started, and I was planning to watch the rest,” she recalled. “But then I fell behind. And then I started reading all these comments online…”
I feel like you are never going to have everybody be satisfied with the ending. Especially a show that’s been going on for almost 10 years at that point. People have so many ideas of how they want it to end. You can’t make every fan happy.
After Game of Thrones ended, you didn’t have to look far to find vitriolic comments about it online — they’re still going in some parts of the internet. I don’t know what she read, but I think it’s sad that the outpouring of hate discouraged someone intimately involved with the show from watching it. It’s one of those, ‘Was the internet really such a good idea?’ moments.
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Anyway, Turner also mused more generally on what it was like to be on a show as successful and famous as Game of Thrones. “Pretty much since season three, we’ve been hearing, ‘Game of Thrones! It’s a phenomenon!’ I’ve been trying to, like, comprehend that,” she said.
But when you’re in it, you can’t see it. Now that I’m out of it, I’m only starting to realize how incredible it was, what a revelation it was for television. I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve been, like, blessed.’ When it’s happening, you don’t realize you’re among greatness: The people I was around. The atmosphere. The way they worked. I was spoiled by that show completely. And I’ll never have anything like it again. Nothing will be the same. And only now am I realizing that.
Turner had such a good experience on Game of Thrones that she wanted to return to television immediately afterwards, which is what led to Survive, where she plays a woman fresh out of rehab who lives through a plan crash. “I just love the atmosphere that you get on the set,” she said. “I love the arc you can create over a number of episodes.”
Survive comes out on Quibi, a new phone-based streaming service, on April 6.
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