Game of Thrones ending but sisterhood remains

MANILA, Philippines — “Winter is coming” and ending as Game of Thrones (GOT) enters its eighth and final season today. The story and characters are expected to transgress the airing time and so are the close bonds formed in the seasons of working together on the set of the global hit HBO series. That includes the reel and real sisterhood of Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams, who play Sansa and Arya Stark, respectively. Polar-opposite, sparring siblings, the Stark sisters have evolved into survivors and fighters in the course of the seven seasons.

HBO Asia invited The STAR to join an international press junket last February to meet some of the main cast members, including Sophie and Maisie. Back in 2013, we also got to meet the two who are real-life besties. At that time, Maisie was 15 and Sophie just turned 17, and they talked about being actors for the first time and being typical teenagers with career decisions still subject to parental consent.

Now, they’re grown-ups, more confident than ever and changed forever, as they talked — not to mention finished each other’s sentences — about what lies ahead and the good fortune of having each other until the end (and beyond) of Game of Thrones.

On GOT’s farewell season:

Maisie: I honestly can’t wait. It’s definitely like you can feel a chapter ending and a new one beginning. I think a lot of people around our age are finishing university, who happen to make big decisions about what they want to do next. Actually, it’s really a great time for me. I look around my peers and I’m like — okay, none of us don’t know what we’re doing and that’s fine. And I just really enjoy taking time out to figure out where do I wanna go next. But in terms of the last chapter ending, it’s necessary but it’s really sad.

Sophie: It’s been a huge part of our lives. And the only part we can remember anyway. It’s very bittersweet. It’s like we’re mourning. It’s very interesting. It’s like the death of our characters (laughs), not that our characters died, it’s a spoiler, the fact that we’re leaving these characters behind, we’re not going to be them again, leaving behind the people we’re working with, the crew, the rest of the casts, just being on set in Belfast, in Winterfell or King’s Landing or wherever, that’s the saddest part for me. But it’s liberating as well. Now we have 12 months to begin and fill up with different projects, which is exciting because normally we have about four months, and find a job.

Maisie on saying goodbye to Game of Thrones: You can feel a chapter ending and a new one beginning. It’s really sad but it’s necessary.

On how their lives have been changed by the show:

Maisie: I dreamt of having a laptop before I started the show. I have one now. I have many. 10 laptops (laughs). But yeah, financially, my family are not from a wealth of money, and my mom did so much for us when we were kids. More than I was ever really aware of. It’s not until I got old that I really started to understand like how much she sacrificed for us. I know that my siblings would love to be able to give back. To be able to provide for my mom and on behalf of all of my siblings is really lovely. I just have to pinch myself sometimes looking at my bank account and how this is insane, how my life has changed.

Sophie: I think it’s changed our lives in so many ways. Like my work ethic, I didn’t have a worth ethic when I was 13. Now I feel like, Game of Thrones was the school for everything. It wasn’t just a school for acting, it was school for how to work, how to interact with other people, how to be a businesswoman, how to do so many things that we normally won’t be able to learn when we’re like our age now, we learned it when we were 13. We’re so very lucky to have this experience early on and also it changed my life in a way that we’re so lucky to be given a platform where now I can kind of sometimes pick and choose my jobs instead of really like fight and fight and fight. That’s really special. And yeah, it’s nice to also have a laptop, too (laughs).

On advice to their younger self working on the GOT set:

Sophie: I would just say, remember everything. Make sure to take pictures, write down notes. That’s one thing I regret, not taking enough pictures.

Maisie: My mom was very good at that (taking pictures). I used to have this little sandwich bag and like every little thread that got cut off my costume just kept on going to the bag. There was this one time when they gave me a bow that was too big, so I cut the bow and made a new hole into it and I would cut a little piece of leather, and like a little end of the bow. I still have all of these. So, I did keep a lot of things. But I would tell my younger self, to not take yourself too seriously. But I did. I was 13. I think I should have more fun. I was trying to be, ‘I’m a grown-up, I know what I’m doing’ but I didn’t.

Sophie: Also to enjoy the child hours at work, which was great. (I was like) I wanna work 12 hours a day. And now, I’m f***, when is my break? I haven’t had a tea in three hours (laughs).

Sophie on being changed by Game of Thrones: It was a school for everything — not just for acting but also how to do so many things we normally won’t be able to learn when we’re like in our age now. We learned it when we were 13.

On dealing with fame:

Sophie: Luckily, we had each other.

Maisie: It’s weird growing up in front of the public. You’re trying to figure out yourself and then there’s a lot of opinions on who you should people and just the pressure of being a woman and being anyone who is photographed from every angle, whatever. It’s kind of hellish. I love being an actor but the fact that fame is something that comes with that is like…

Sophie: … Is the opposite of what an actor should be. In order for us to be good actors we have to be able to dissolve into our roles completely and when you’re in the public eye, you start becoming known for being you, and that’s not at all what you want to be, no don’t do that. I want to be seen as my roles. It’s like a complete contradiction to what you want to be.  

Maisie: You want to be anonymous.

On their characters being reunited (ergo, them working closely together again) since last season:

Sophie: In the beginning Sansa didn’t understand Arya, and Arya didn’t understand Sansa. You’re so weird, why do you love knives and daggers and all of these boy stuff and now they embrace each other and each other’s differences. There were some lines in the last season, where Sansa says I could never survive what you have survived, and Arya says, same to you, and it’s true, they’re so different. But without these differences, they wouldn’t be alive today. Now, Sansa really embraces and encourages those differences and Arya, the same with Sansa. (Maisie and I) do love working together and I think that hindered us a bit. We just couldn’t behave on set at all.

Maisie: I think some of the crew were really shocked because I had never been that unprofessional in my entire life.

Sophie: No, it was so unprofessional to have us together. Terrible idea for us to work together.

Maisie: Don’t say that, otherwise no one is going to cast us together.

Sophie: We work so well together (laughs).

Maisie: We’re excited and we’re really well-behaved (laughs).

A younger Maisie and Sophie in a scene from the HBO series

(The farewell season of Game of Thrones debuts in Asia same time as the US today at 9 a.m., with an encore at 10 p.m., on HBO GO and HBO. New episodes will premiere every Monday at the same time.)