New York: Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams, Emilia Clarke, Gwendoline Christie spoke about their powerful portrayals on the red carpet for the final season of 'Game of Thrones' on April 3 here.
Turner who plays Sansa Stark, begins the first season as the young daughter of Ned Stark, Warden of the North, getting lessons in etiquette. Her life changes significantly as she travels with her father, watches his beheading, and gets sold into an abusive marriage. But she perseveres over time, eventually saving the day by bringing the Knights of the Vale to save Jon Snow at the Battle of the Bastards.
The young actress calls the way the show depicts women, "Amazing."
"I think it's so, so important and it's very relevant to nowadays," Turner said as her co-star Williams sachet over to lick her shoulder.
"Speaking of strong, powerful women, there she is. It's just really important to have that inclusion and it's so exciting to see a show kind of liberating women as they should be portrayed as they are. That's the best thing for me. There's no wives, there's no girlfriends, there's no sisters. They're full functioning real people—amazingly," Turner said.
Williams, who plays her younger sister, Arya, had a different trajectory. She was more interested in sword fighting, and those skills came in handy as she found herself on the run for a few seasons, needing to survive, while picking up some deadly skills along the way.
Arya is one of the series fiercest warriors, but Williams claims she didn't make a conscious effort to do it as a strong female character.
"I think all of that came second. It was never at the forefront of my mind. I think that's when things go wrong when you're like, 'Oh, Arya's like empowering so I should be really empowering in this scene." That's not what makes you like a character. I think like trying to make her as authentically and honestly as I could, particularly...you know, being in such a brutal world and being such a cold character, I think, you know, it ended up being something that people quite enjoyed. But I think for me it was just trying to be honest with it really," Williams said.
Then there's the mother of dragons.
Emilia Clarke, who plays Daenerys Targaryen is another woman that overcomes hardships to become perhaps the most powerful character in the series. She credits the writers.
"I feel incredibly lucky to play the Mother of Dragon's for eight seasons. I feel very, very, very proud. But it definitely wasn't me. It was the incredible writing of David Benioff and Dan Weiss," Clarke said.
Recently, Clarke admitted that she suffered two brain aneurysms, and required surgery. Her recovery entails a period where her ability to process language was impaired. But she persevered.
On the red carpet, Clarke joked about how got past those struggles and returned to the show.
"I just genuinely got back on the dragon," Clarke said.
Gwendoline Christie plays the Brienne of Tarth, another fierce warrior. Christie loves more than the physical ability of her character, but also her sense of morality.
"I am extremely proud to have played Brienne of Tarth. What I love is that she is not just incredibly physically, strong and able and capable of fighting, but also, she has an extremely strong moral sense. And I had never played a hero before and I have really loved it. I do hope to possibly play more," Christie said.
You can see these four ladies when the series returns for its final season April 14 on HBO.
With inputs from APTN
