Maisie Williams opens up about that sex scene in Game of Thrones

It was all shits and giggles - she thought

Words by Maisie Bovingdon

Game of Thrones series eight, the season to end all seasons has landed, and though only two episodes have aired so far it has already been a huge talking point.

But there was one scene in particular that caused a storm. Maisie Williams - who plays Arya Stark - had a sex scene with Joe Dempsie's character Gendry on the night before The Battle of Winterfell.

On Sunday night the intimate moment Arya lost her virginity aired, but right up until rehearsals Maisie, 22, thought it was a prank written into the script by directors David Benioff and Dan Weiss to throw everyone off, because they have previously sent hoax scripts to the cast in the past.

But, boy was she wrong.

She told Entertainment Weekly: 'At first, I thought it was a prank. I was like, "Yo, good one." And [the showrunners were] like, "No, we haven’t done that this year."'

She continued: 'I got to the read-through and I’m reading the scene and thought, "Oh, we’re actually going to do this."'

When Maisie realised the scene was set to be filmed, her head was filled with a tonne of questions.

Speaking about her preparation for the moment, she said: '"When do I shoot this? I need to go to the gym." A whole list of things.'

But the sex scene was as explicit as some that have previously previewed on the HBO series, and Maisie was given full control of how exposed she wanted to be.

She explained: 'David and Dan were like: "You can show as much or as little as you want." 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.'

The final episode of Game of Thrones airs on 19th May.