‘Game of Thrones’ star Maisie Williams addresses fans’ discomfort over her sex scene - Los Angeles Times
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‘Game of Thrones’ star Maisie Williams addresses fans’ discomfort over her sex scene

Maisie Williams at the "Game of Thrones" Season 8 screening on April 12, 2019, in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Maisie Williams at the “Game of Thrones” Season 8 screening on April 12, 2019, in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
(Charles McQuillan / Getty Images)
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Maisie Williams knows some people might be uncomfortable with Arya Stark’s sex scene in the latest episode of “Game of Thrones,” but she’s keen to remind them that their discomfort can’t be any worse than her family’s.

The 22-year-old actress took to Twitter on Tuesday to say as much, writing, “just know that my mother and my step dad and my 2 sisters and my 4 brothers have all probably watched this too.”

The “this” that she’s referring to plays out as the characters of HBO’s fantasy war-drama move through their last night together before an epic battle with the Night King’s army of the dead.

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Williams’ Arya, who is believed to be about 18 on the show, decides to spend her final hours before the battle with the blacksmith Gendry (Joe Dempsie), who has been the object of her affection since she was a young girl on the lam.

Williams joined the series when she was 11. Since “Game of Thrones” premiered in 2011, viewers have seen her grow up from a tomboy and evolve into a fearsome assassin in front of their eyes, resulting in their shock and dismay when Williams went topless in last Sunday’s episode.

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The actress told Entertainment Weekly that she initially thought the scene was a prank because showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss had in the past successfully duped her and costars with bogus scripts. She also said that they let her decide how much of her body she wanted to show on camera.

“David and Dan were like: ‘You can show as much or as little as you want,’ ” Williams said. “So I kept myself pretty private. I don’t think it’s important for Arya to flash. This beat isn’t really about that. And everybody else has already done it on the show.”

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Dempsie, 31, told EW that it was “obviously slightly strange” for him to shoot, but said he didn’t want to be patronizing toward Williams, “so we just had a lot of fun with it.”

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