Arya Stark faced off against her most dangerous threat yet in Sunday’sGame of Thronesepisode, “No One.”
It’s so weird saying that because that’sliterally my job.
And I remember saying that to my agent when she was saying I should be an actress.
Credit: HBO
I said, “I can’t remember all the lines.”
And now I am an actress and I’m seriously saying that in the role.
That’s going to stick with me forever.
He asked me if Arya ever really thought she was going to be become a Faceless Man.
I said, “I don’t think so.
I don’t think she could ever believed she could give everything up.”
Where she was like, “Oh, this is cool.”
But what’s totally shaped her is the whole reason why she’s here.
If everything hadn’t happened she’d be home at Winterfell with her mom and dad.
She’s tried, but she can’t do this.
That’s the way I started thinking about it.
It’s like that famousTop Modelquote, “I’m not here to make friends.”
I’m not here to dance around and play in your play.
But I have bigger things that I can’t tell you that I’m going to do instead.
Let’s talk about Arya’s showdown with the The Waif.
Earlier in the season you had a bunch of harsh training scenes; what were those like to shoot?
I had a bit of pride.
I’ve done some sword-fighting before.
So it was the healthy way to train.
Then Arya had this extremely close call, a bunch of them, over the last two episodes.
We wanted people to think this could be the end, or the start of the end.
Like maybe her wound is going to fester like The Hound.
I had been to a music festival so I hadn’t slept the whole weekend.
Then I was jumping in the Irish sea.
It was a totally manic day.
We did a million different takes.
We wanted it to be real frantic and panicked.
Arya hasn’t been emotional in a long time, and we wanted to bring that emotion.
When it’s a long-running series, you have to give her light and shade.
It’s the first time she thinks she’s not going to make it, and it’s scary.
She’s petrified of dying.
She’s got so much more to do.
And just the sheer anger, too The Waif?
Of all the people to kill her.
She’s not even on her list!
She’s not even on the list!
People are going to watch and be like, “Don’t put your blood on the wall.
Have you learned nothing Arya?
I hate you.”
And then they’re going to be like, “Oh, she’s a smart girl.”
Arya’s been very lucky with the people she’s encountered so far.
The whole time she was with The Hound, she took a back seat because he was really good.
So I wanted her to look like she was struggling.
I didn’t want [the chase stunts] to be unnecessary or superhuman.
I’d be like, “Why would she run over there?
She’d just duck under here and just get out.”
But I know Arya now.
In the beginning it was a lot of guesswork, and now I’ve figured her out.
You want to be happy with the work you’ve done.
Also ourdeep-dive recap, plus checkHBO’s previewfor next week’s “Battle of the Bastards.”
