Fans of Game Of Thrones may have been shocked by a certain scene in Sunday's episode, but no one was more surprised than Maisie Williams herself.
The actress revealed she initially thought the sex scene between her character, Arya Stark, and Gendry, played by Joe Dempsie, was a prank.
"I was like, 'Yo, good one.' And (the showrunners were like) like, 'No, we haven't done that this year.' Oh f***!" she told Entertainment Weekly.
Williams learned of the scene when her co-star Sophie Turner, who portrays Sansa Stark, called her after reading the script. Turner told her to skip the rest of the pages and flip to "this scene, this page."
It was only when Williams and the cast were doing their final season table read that she realised the steamy affair was no joke.
"I got to the read-through and I'm reading the scene and thought, 'Oh, we're actually going to do this. When do I shoot this? I need to go to the gym.' A whole list of things," she said.
Prior to filming, 22-year-old Williams said the showrunners let her decide how much she wanted to show. She said she ended up keeping herself "pretty private" because she didn't think it was important for Arya to completely expose herself.
The scene itself, Williams said, was naturally a bit awkward to film.
"In the beginning, everyone was really respectful. No one wants to make you feel uncomfortable which kind of makes you feel more uncomfortable, because no one wants to look at anything that they shouldn't look at, which in turn makes you feel like you look awful because everyone is kind of like" (Williams averts her eyes). "You want people to act more normal," she said.
For Dempsie, 31, the scene felt strange considering how long he's known Williams.
"It's obviously slightly strange for me because I've known Maisie since she was 11, 12 years old," he told EW. "At the same time, I don't want to be patronising toward Maisie. She's a 20-year-old woman. So we just had a lot of fun with it." - Ella Torres/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service
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