Maisie Williams: “[Game of Thrones season 8 is] different to what you think it’s gonna be”

What are Arya Stark and the gang going to be up to in season 8 of Game of Thrones? “I know stuff now,” Maisie Williams told The Times. “And it’s just not knowing stuff. It’s knowing the end.” A girl knows how to tease.

Williams is currently on a press tour to promote Early Man, her new movie, and while the Game of Thrones powers that be have ways of keeping cast members from spilling the beans about the story, Williams is willing to dish, if only a little. “[When I received the scripts, my mother and I] cracked open a bottle of wine and made predictions about how it was going to end,” she said. “And neither of us was right.”

Okay, but were they at least close? “No. I don’t know if it’s gonna surprise people, but it’s just different to what you think it’s gonna be.”

One of the more interesting questions The Times asked concerned Arya’s future: after everything she’s gone through, with her parents and multiple siblings dead, after killing a large number of people, does Arya have any chance for a “normal” life?

"For a lot of the previous season, her emotions were very cut off. She didn’t want to hear what her family had been through. I hope in the new season I get a chance to bring back a bit more of that fun child we all fell in love with."

Incidentally, The Times describes the new Arya as “sunnier.” What would that even look like?

The “childhood lost” theme could apply to Williams herself, who at the age of 12 beat out 300 other British actresses to win the role of Arya Stark, and then grew up in the public eye. It wasn’t always a great experience, but it helped her grow. “I was a really cynical teenager and I feel like I’m a nicer, more wholesome person now…There were things I learnt on Game of Thrones that you could never learn in a classroom.”

Williams also weighed in on the now popular topic of whether the episodes in season 8 will be supersized. There are only six of them, after all, so it’d be nice if they were longer than usual so fans could get their obsessions’ worth. “That would be amazing,” she said. “Milk it for all its worth, why don’t you?”

Williams also spoke with the Leicester Mercury about how making the show is different for the final season. “It is so much fun now there is only a small group of us left and it’s exciting to know everything that is going on.”

If all these Williams soundbites have you in an Arya-tastic mood, please enjoy this fan edit of her journey set to a parody version of America’s “A Horse With No Name.”

Someone had to make this sooner or later.

Next: HBO president: Game of Thrones prequel won’t air until 2020 at the earliest

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