Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams has said it felt “nice and powerful” to have her character Arya Stark team up with onscreen sister Sansa in the final series.
The actress revealed that Arya sides with her sibling, played by Sophie Turner, in season eight and they occasionally “call out” Jon Snow, played by Kit Harington.
Williams said that it will be a contrast from last series where Sansa “looked bitter because Jon was thinking with his penis” in events leading up to the finale.
“It’s not often you see a character siding with Sansa who’s not manipulating her,” Williams told Entertainment Weekly.
“This season you see Arya teaming with Sansa and sometimes calling out Jon. It felt nice and powerful to stand next to Sophie.”
The 21-year-old added that her and Turner are “the tightest of friends” and that “no acting was required” to portray their alliance.
Williams also teased the end to the HBO show, which she branded “not okay”, as the fantasy hit prepares to bow out after eight years.
“No matter how you end it, people don’t want it to end. So the ending is not going to be okay, because ‘the end’ is not okay,” she said. “I think the way we end it is right. And I think it’s time.”
This season will see Arya involved in her first major battle sequence, teased in the trailer as she gazes up at Drogon in awe while the Unsullied army march on.
Williams previously revealed that the battle scenes left her “mentally and physically broken” and that she was “warned” by the director that she needed to start training a year before filming.
She told Entertainment Weekly: “Nothing can prepare you for how physically draining it is. It’s night after night, and again and again, and it just doesn’t stop.
“You can’t get sick, and you have to look out for yourself because there’s so much to do that nobody else can do… there are moments you’re just broken as a human and just want to cry.”
Game Of Thrones will return for a final series on April 15, simulcasting with the US at 2am. Episodes will be repeated at 9pm on Sky Atlantic.
