2:13 pm - 02/21/2013
A Princess Sophie post in honor of her 17th name day!
Sophie Turner is a natural fit for Game of Thrones’ Sansa Stark: ‘I’m lucky to play a character like her’
By SCOTT STINSON
Sophie Turner was a 13-year-old student in the blue-collar English town of Warwick when she landed her first role in front of a television camera. The parallels she shared with the character she would play, Sansa Stark, eldest daughter of the doomed Stark family on Game of Thrones, are inescapable.
As the series opened, the Starks departed their cold northern home for the royal court of King’s Landing in the fictional kingdom of Westeros. Turner’s journey, meanwhile, was from middle England to studios and sets in Belfast and Dubrovnik.
“Sansa goes from this life that she’s always known and there’s this, kind of, grandeur of King’s Landing and the Lannisters, and she just has no idea what to expect and that’s certainly what I was going through at the same time,” Turner says over the phone from London, a few days short of her 17th birthday. “But, you know Sansa didn’t have all these people on set who were there to help and guide her,” she adds. “So I wasn’t quite as scared.”
Also, Sansa was betrothed to the then-prince Joffrey, who turned out to be rather the sadist. So that was a bit tougher. “That’s true,” Turner says with a laugh. “I wasn’t engaged to this brutal monster.”
It’s to the credit of the producers of Game of Thrones that they risked neophyte actors in what are highly challenging roles. All of the Stark children undergo tectonic shifts in their lives, and Sansa in particular goes from dreaming of a sunshine-and-rainbows royal marriage to fearing just about everyone around her.
“I was prepared for a journey, maybe not as prepared as I thought I would be,” Turner says, “but I think Sansa changes the most in terms of development — personally I think that, but maybe I’m just being biased.”
“In two seasons she goes from a girl to a young woman and grows up faster than any teenager should have to,” Turner says. “I know I’m lucky to play a character like that.”
Aside from character development, Turner had the challenge of scenes in which she was attacked on the orders of her husband-to-be and almost raped by a mob.
“It sounds weird, but I really enjoyed the beating-up scenes and the really dramatic scenes, I was happy to do all that, it was fun working with the stunt team,” she says. “A lot of people ask me if that’s the hardest part of being an actress, but my biggest challenge throughout the whole of the series was singing. Before I went on, they put this thing in my drink to make me a little calmer.” Scandal! But then she adds: “You know, this natural remedy to calm me down because I so nervous, I was hyperventilating.”
Still, this is a show that includes graphic violence and sexual content. But Turner says the younger actors were shielded somewhat from what was going on during filming.
“It was only kind of in the [script] read-throughs that you’d get little hints of what it was like,” she says. Isaac Hempstead-Wright, who plays her younger brother Bran, wasn’t allowed to take part in some of the read-throughs, Turner says, because “it had, you know, adult content.”
She says it wasn’t until she watched the first episode that she realized, for example, there was a key scene involving incest.
“But my parents understand,” she says, explaining that they understand such material can be part of the industry. “They’re just happy I got a role,” she chuckles.
Fans of the series, and of the five novels (and counting) on which they are based, will know that one of the signatures of Game of Thrones is its unpredictability. Life is often brutish and short in the Seven Kingdoms. I ask Turner if she was aware of the plot twists in the source material before she started filming. Did she start combing the books for clues?
“I was finding out as the scripts came through. I’m a slow reader anyway,” she says. “I would read the Sansa chapters, but I never got further than the season I was shooting. I have no idea what happens in the end, but so far in the books I know I’m not dead, so I’m happy.”
She laughs when asked about the uncertainty of it all, where it’s a safe bet that at least a few of her cast mates — including, possibly, herself — won’t make it to the series finale.
“It’s so ambiguous as to where this is going to go,” she says. “The executive producers, they know what happens in the very end, but they aren’t letting anything out. All the cast are trying to bribe them into telling us, but it’s failed attempts.”
Even a Stark is at the whims of author George R.R. Martin, who resolutely resists hints about the forthcoming novels, including when he plans to finish them.
“But when the next book comes out,” Turner says, “we’re all going to be rushing to the book shop along with the fans because we’re as in the dark as they are.”
Game of Thrones Season 2 is now out on DVD. Season 3 will debut on HBO Canada on March 31.
Source.
That's interesting to have confirmation from a cast member that D&D do indeed know the ending, or at least where to take the series when/if the show overlaps the books. Anyway, this is obvs a Sansa appreciation post so have at it!
By SCOTT STINSON
Sophie Turner was a 13-year-old student in the blue-collar English town of Warwick when she landed her first role in front of a television camera. The parallels she shared with the character she would play, Sansa Stark, eldest daughter of the doomed Stark family on Game of Thrones, are inescapable.
As the series opened, the Starks departed their cold northern home for the royal court of King’s Landing in the fictional kingdom of Westeros. Turner’s journey, meanwhile, was from middle England to studios and sets in Belfast and Dubrovnik.
“Sansa goes from this life that she’s always known and there’s this, kind of, grandeur of King’s Landing and the Lannisters, and she just has no idea what to expect and that’s certainly what I was going through at the same time,” Turner says over the phone from London, a few days short of her 17th birthday. “But, you know Sansa didn’t have all these people on set who were there to help and guide her,” she adds. “So I wasn’t quite as scared.”
Also, Sansa was betrothed to the then-prince Joffrey, who turned out to be rather the sadist. So that was a bit tougher. “That’s true,” Turner says with a laugh. “I wasn’t engaged to this brutal monster.”
It’s to the credit of the producers of Game of Thrones that they risked neophyte actors in what are highly challenging roles. All of the Stark children undergo tectonic shifts in their lives, and Sansa in particular goes from dreaming of a sunshine-and-rainbows royal marriage to fearing just about everyone around her.
“I was prepared for a journey, maybe not as prepared as I thought I would be,” Turner says, “but I think Sansa changes the most in terms of development — personally I think that, but maybe I’m just being biased.”
“In two seasons she goes from a girl to a young woman and grows up faster than any teenager should have to,” Turner says. “I know I’m lucky to play a character like that.”
Aside from character development, Turner had the challenge of scenes in which she was attacked on the orders of her husband-to-be and almost raped by a mob.
“It sounds weird, but I really enjoyed the beating-up scenes and the really dramatic scenes, I was happy to do all that, it was fun working with the stunt team,” she says. “A lot of people ask me if that’s the hardest part of being an actress, but my biggest challenge throughout the whole of the series was singing. Before I went on, they put this thing in my drink to make me a little calmer.” Scandal! But then she adds: “You know, this natural remedy to calm me down because I so nervous, I was hyperventilating.”
Still, this is a show that includes graphic violence and sexual content. But Turner says the younger actors were shielded somewhat from what was going on during filming.
“It was only kind of in the [script] read-throughs that you’d get little hints of what it was like,” she says. Isaac Hempstead-Wright, who plays her younger brother Bran, wasn’t allowed to take part in some of the read-throughs, Turner says, because “it had, you know, adult content.”
She says it wasn’t until she watched the first episode that she realized, for example, there was a key scene involving incest.
“But my parents understand,” she says, explaining that they understand such material can be part of the industry. “They’re just happy I got a role,” she chuckles.
Fans of the series, and of the five novels (and counting) on which they are based, will know that one of the signatures of Game of Thrones is its unpredictability. Life is often brutish and short in the Seven Kingdoms. I ask Turner if she was aware of the plot twists in the source material before she started filming. Did she start combing the books for clues?
“I was finding out as the scripts came through. I’m a slow reader anyway,” she says. “I would read the Sansa chapters, but I never got further than the season I was shooting. I have no idea what happens in the end, but so far in the books I know I’m not dead, so I’m happy.”
She laughs when asked about the uncertainty of it all, where it’s a safe bet that at least a few of her cast mates — including, possibly, herself — won’t make it to the series finale.
“It’s so ambiguous as to where this is going to go,” she says. “The executive producers, they know what happens in the very end, but they aren’t letting anything out. All the cast are trying to bribe them into telling us, but it’s failed attempts.”
Even a Stark is at the whims of author George R.R. Martin, who resolutely resists hints about the forthcoming novels, including when he plans to finish them.
“But when the next book comes out,” Turner says, “we’re all going to be rushing to the book shop along with the fans because we’re as in the dark as they are.”
Game of Thrones Season 2 is now out on DVD. Season 3 will debut on HBO Canada on March 31.
Source.
That's interesting to have confirmation from a cast member that D&D do indeed know the ending, or at least where to take the series when/if the show overlaps the books. Anyway, this is obvs a Sansa appreciation post so have at it!
my money is on bran taking it allllll the way tbh. sansa might too but if I had to pick just one, bran
Edited at 2013-02-21 08:40 pm (UTC)
Bran maybe. Probably doing tree stuff idk.
I believe Arya will die.
and if they do even their deaths will be less brutal than GRRM's once I find him
Maybe Bran if he stops being a tree
I'm afraid Arya will die but i don't want her to
No idea on Rickon, Bran will be part tree
Arya though... I have this theory that she will die but warg into Nymeria at the last minute. Then she'll travel North or wherever and reunite with Sansa in wolf form.
I just want a sister reunion :(