Sophie Turner talks about Sansa’s final arc, fake scenes and more

Sophie Turner is at New York Comic Con to talk about her upcoming turn as Jean Grey in X-Men: Dark Phoenix, but according to Vulture, she also talked plenty about what’s in store for Sansa Stark in the final season of Game of Thrones. “I know I say this every season, but Sansa really comes into her own this season.”

"The past few seasons for her and the whole series for her, she’s kind of been somewhat lost as a matter of where she wants to be, who she wants to be, who she wants to surround herself with, and this season she is very very self-assured. She knows what she wants. She knows what she stands for. She knows who she wants to be around, and she faces threats to that this season. But, well, we’ll see how that goes."

Sansa has most definitely had a long and hard-fought journey towards self-assurance. Let’s hope it pays off in the final episodes.

Turner is an old hand at interviews by this point, and didn’t give away anything specific about the plot. That’s clearly the way HBO wants it, given the heightened security on the season 8 set. “The secrecy is crazy,” Turner said. “We have a whole different name for [the season] when we’re shooting it. I think this season it was like the Tree of Life or something.” She also revealed that the network has a “drone killer” that shoots down any flying cameras looking to spy on the set. “Also, we shoot fake scenes. We got into costume in Croatia because we know the paparazzi lurk around there, so we would spend like half a day doing nothing.”

That last bit is especially interesting. We didn’t see Turner in costume in Croatia, but we did see some other unlikely cast members shoot together. (Caution: That link has potential SPOILERS.) Was HBO hoodwinking us here? If Turner did actually get in costume to film a fake scenes, it looks like nobody noticed.

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Newsweek, meanwhile, reports Turner’s comments about her final day on set. “It was very emotional,” she said. Turner said.

I was lucky that my last day was surrounded by a lot of the cast members. We’d been shooting the same scene for five days straight, so by the end of it I was like, ‘f—, I just want to finish.’ But it was highly emotional.”

"What David and Dan [Benioff and Weiss, the showrunners] do, they bring out a storyboard of their favorite scene for your character in all of Game of Thrones, and they write this really long note on the back. I just bawled my eyes out. I couldn’t stop shaking and crying for hours. I still don’t really accept that it’s done. I think I won’t accept that it’s over until next year comes around and I’m not back in Belfast with my family. It’s weird."

Turner also “burst into tears” when Sean Bean (Ned Stark) returned to the set for a “behind the scenes thing” I’m betting HBO will release as a mini-documentary later. “I wasn’t expecting that!”

So emotions ran high, but if they ever threatened to overwhelm Turner, it sounds like she could also rely on best buddy Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) for emotional support. “We did a chemistry read together,” Turner said, remembering how they met. “It was the final three for Sansa, and I was like, Fuck, I really need to up my game. I went in, and was I like, What’s up?! I gave her a big hug. I was like high-five after every take. I was super extra, but it worked. I read with other Aryas before, but Maisie was special. We just got on like that.”

"We’re kind of like loners on Game of Thrones, just because the past few seasons Maisie and I have sleepovers every night when we’re shooting. Or every night whenever both of us are in town. We just used to sit there and eat and watch stupid videos and smoke weed. I don’t know if my publicist will kill me for saying this. We’d get high and then we’d sit in the bath together and we’d rub makeup brushes on our faces. It’s fun."

Ha! Clearly, these two have found a friend for life.

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