Maisie Williams avoided most interviews on the SAG Red Carpet this weekend, but the same didn’t hold true for Entertainment Weekly’s Friday night pre-awards show party. In a short interview with Vulture, Maisie Williams was asked about her experience filming Season 6. Unlike some of the actors who speak in grandiose terms but give few specifics about the season (hello, Emilia Clarke!), Williams decided to drill down to the nitty gritty details of what filming the beginning of the season was like for her, in order not to give anything of the story away.
Not much left but the floors, nothing lives here anymore
Except the memories of a few minor spoilers
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At the very end of Season 5, Arya goes blind after killing a mark who was not her assigned victim. As one might expect, said blindness will be a feature of her first few episodes. Though we already knew that from filming spoilers and Williams’ Instagram feed, she confirms the news in this interview. With her sight removed, she’ll be dependent on her other senses at the beginning of the season. Unfortunately, the “huge contacts” (which she said at the end of Season 5 were terribly uncomfortable) did not get any easier to wear this year and she was “a bit of a wimp” about it.
I was so confident at the end of the last , like, Oh, was fine, I can’t wait, but it’s been actually a bit of a task. They’re very painful, they’re like huge and they’re very thick.
Williams also said in interviews after Season 5 that the contacts were painted, so they really did make her blind. That certainly helped when getting into character. “Pretending to be blind is much easier when you actually can’t see anything. So I did actually love them. For close-ups and stuff it was great, but for wide shots I was like, ‘Can we take them out? Is that okay?’”
Poor Maisie! Let’s all breathe a sigh of relief for her when Arya is allowed to regain her sight.