Sophie Turner: Jon Snow is “restoring Sansa’s faith in men,” and other cast interviews

We’ve got some new interviews with Game of Thrones cast members for you. First up: Sophie Turner talks about Sansa Stark’s development throughout the show to awards website Gold Derby. Watch it below:

Turner has been giving lots of interviews of late, and dropping some interesting tidbits about the coming season. She’s said that Sansa goes “on a bit of a power trip” in Season 7 and that she would probably “like to be Queen in the North on her own.” She continues to tease some tension in the Stark family in this family, saying that while she was away from Winterfell, “I suppose she kind of put [her family] on something of a pedestal because everyone else has been so terrible to her.” So when she reunited with Jon, she was elated, but there’s some tension, too.

"They’ve both been through so much, and he’s not listening to her as much anymore, and he’s not respecting what she’s been through, and I think she feels a little disheartened by Jon, as lovely as it is to see him again and as much as they do love each other."

But on the other hand, Turner also says that Sansa’s relationship with Jon Snow is having positive effects. “They’re equals for the first time. And I think he’s really restoring [Sansa’s] faith in men.”

"It’s just nice for her to be on par with someone of the opposite sex especially…To have someone listen to her and actually ask her advice is a really nice thing for her…She’s a kind of leader in her own right now, and that’s really refreshing."

Some of that seems contradictory, so I’m curious to see how it plays out. Whatever happens, the relationship between Sansa and Jon Snow looks like it’s going to get complicated.

Another interesting bit: Turner explains how Sansa reached her current state of mind. “Sansa is who she is because of the people that she’s been around, like Littlefinger and Margaery and Cersei. That’s how she learned to manipulate and that’s how she learned to play the game.” Beyond shaping Sansa as a person, Turner draws elements from the performances of the actors behind those characters (Aidan Gillen, Natalie Dormer, and Lena Headey) when crafting her own. It’s a pretty cool approach to acting.

Some other tidbits:

• Turner auditioned with the scene where Sansa sees her father’s head on a spike.
• Turner’s role on X-Men: Apocalypse came up when she said she she, as Sansa, would “love to go full full Jean Grey on everyone’s ass and blow them away like she did with Apocalypse, but can’t do that in Westeros. Waiting on the dragons to come and do it for me.”
• Question: Did Turner’s opinion of Sansa change at all over the years? “No. I’ve always admired her…I always saw the potential in her and I’ve always seen the good in her…She’s kind of fulfilled everything I had hoped for her…She’s amazing. I love her. I talk about her like a person. It’s quite weird.”
• Question: What does Turner admire about Sansa? “She never gives up on her family…And how she’s defying…all of the social boundaries that are upon young women in those times. I love how she’s breaking all of those stereotypes.”

Next, Bella Ramsey (Lyanna Mormont) talked to Yahoo about her scene-stealing character, who made her debut in Season 6. “She is a strong, firm female,” Ramsey said. “She doesn’t dither about wondering whether to do this or that, go here or there. She gets the facts, weighs them up and makes her decisions from there. Whereas I’m a ditherer — I take about 10 minutes deciding whether to have salt-and-vinegar or prawn-cocktail chips!”

She also gave some behind-the-curtain info on some of her most notable scenes from Season 6, which is pretty much all of them. For example, remember the bit where she gifted Jon Snow with a whopping 62 fighting men for his army? “Every time I had to say ’62’ with a completely straight face, I cracked up,” Ramsey said. “Other than that, the scene was really good [to film]. I didn’t know what to expect, but the actors were all so welcoming and lovely. I remember that Kit liked my Doc Martens.”

So was she wearing Doc Martins under all that Northern fur? I guess we couldn’t see her feet in that scene.

Ramsey also weighed in on the ice-cold stare she gave Ramsay Bolton in “Battle of the Bastards.” If you’ve somehow forgotten that…

"I didn’t know I was doing a death stare in that scene. I guess Iwan [Rheon, who plays Ramsay Bolton] is just an incredibly good actor to make me pull such a face! He’s nothing like his character."

Lyanna’s horse was less cooperative. “The horse did not want to stay still. She was fine when the camera wasn’t on me, but as soon as it was, she decided she wanted to change places with the horse next to me!”

So what’s in store for Mormont going forward? “You’ll have to wait and see.” Naturally.