Warning: this article contains spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 2!
The second episode of Game of Thrones’ final season featured some big moments, but few stood out as much as that Arya and Gendry scene. You know the one. Many fans were surprised to see the tomboyish, bloodthirsty Arya let her hair down (literally) and get intimate with her old friend. And it turns out that actress Maisie Williams was as surprised by the development as anyone.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Williams revealed that co-star Sophie Turner was the first to warn her about Arya and Gendry’s sex scene in Episode 2. “Sophie said, ‘Whatever you do, you have to skip to this episode, this scene first.’ So I just read that and it was practically all I knew about the entire season.”
Williams admits she actually thought she was being pranked by showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (which they apparently have a habit of doing), only for reality to set in. “I got to the read-through and I’m reading the scene and thought, ‘Oh, we’re actually going to do this. When do I shoot this? I need to go to the gym.’ A whole list of things.”
While nudity is hardly a rarity on Game of Thrones, Williams’ nude scene is somewhat unusual considering that she was only 11 when she was cast. Arya was 11 in Season 1, and the show has tended to follow the timescale of a year per season, meaning Arya’s age is around 18 or 19 now, while Williams is 22 in reality.
Williams revealed that Benioff and Weiss allowed her to take the lead and determine just how explicit the scene would be, and she seemingly declined to use a body-double for the scene. “David and Dan were like: ‘You can show as much or as little as you want,’” Williams said. “So I kept myself pretty private. I don’t think it’s important for Arya to flash. This beat isn’t really about that. And everybody else has already done it on the show, so…”
But while this scene might have been a little awkward for both cast and crew, Williams is adamant that it represents an important milestone for Arya, proving that she’s still capable of forming relationships and attachments. “This is something she’s stayed away from, an emotion we’ve never really seen her engage with. David and Dan were like, ‘It’s the end of the world, what else would you have her do?’ This may be a moment where Arya accepts death tomorrow, which she never does — ‘Not Today.’ So it was that moment where she says, ‘We’re probably going to die tomorrow, I want to know what this feels like before that happens.’ It’s interesting to see Arya be a bit more human, speak more normally about things people are scared of.”
For more on tonight’s new episode, check out our review of “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” learn why Bran’s battle plan may be significant, and read about the hidden meaning of Podrick’s song about Jenny of Oldstones.
Jesse is a mild-mannered writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter, or Kicksplode on MyIGN.
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