Exclusive interview with Sophie Turner

This exclusive interview with Sophie Turner was made available to us by HBO and Sky Germany. The British actress landed her first acting role in the HBO drama series "Game of Thrones" and for the last three years she has been portraying the role of Sansa Stark. Turner is familiar with the books of G. R. R. Martin and in the interview she talks about how proud she is to be a part of "Game of Thrones" and all the fun she and her castmates are having on set.

Foto: Sophie Turner - Copyright: 2013 Home Box Office, Inc. All rights reserved.
Sophie Turner
© 2013 Home Box Office, Inc. All rights reserved.
Note: © HBO/Sky/myFanbase 2013 - The interview is exclusive to myFanbase and may not be published on other websites or the like. You may share the first 2 questions or up to 160 characters if you link back to this site. Translations other than English and German may be posted with full credit including the writer's name and link to this site.

Set the scene for your character at the beginning of season three.

At the end of last season we thought Sansa might have got away from Joffrey and King's Landing and then… bombshell, she's still a prisoner. The beginning of season three begins on a bit of a lighter note because Sansa's still got Shae, her supposed handmaiden, as a friend. It's more about Sansa accepting the fact that she's a prisoner. I mean there is always going to be that longing to get out, but she's formed friendships which is really nice and you get to see Sansa develop.

She had a pretty grim time in season two. Were you hoping for happier times for her?

Well I knew the story of the books and in them she's still a prisoner. I was hoping that the scripts would be different but alas no. So I'm going to hope for the best for Sansa and we'll see if she gets out or not.

What's the broad arc of her story in season three?

It's pretty much this massive roller-coaster. She gets lower than she's been in season two and season one pretty much because she's lost all her innocence, yet she still has this hope. You could say that she's a little bit naïve in getting her hopes up and that's a fault to her character. It just makes it pretty sad watching her.

That must give you lots to work with as an actor, though?

It's the coolest thing to do as an actor because you get all these different emotions to play. This isn't a happy-go-lucky TV series! There's so much crap going round that you have to show all of these emotions; you draw them from whatever place that you can find them. It really tests you as an actor but you want to be tested. It's lucky that I love crying on screen. If they had an actress for Sansa that hated crying it might be a problem.

You do cry a lot. How do you turn on the taps?

It's really weird. In season one I was like, "Cry cry cry!" but it would take me a while. But there was a certain point in season three where I had to do this really sad scene and it was just her crying; I was about to do like the normal "Sophie, cry now! " and then I just kind of like burst into tears at the thought of it. Ever since then every scene that I've done I've just been able to cry… it's a handy thing to have in your locker if you want to get out of school or something like that!

Foto: Sophie Turner - Copyright: 2013 Home Box Office, Inc. All rights reserved.
Sophie Turner
© 2013 Home Box Office, Inc. All rights reserved.

Has Sansa hardened up as a result of all she's seen?

She is tougher but what works for her is pretending and putting on this front. Originally she was this naïve, innocent girl and if she keeps that up then no-one's going to suspect her if she tries to do anything. She's got this little disguise. That gives her something she can use to her advantage.

Do you imagine her turning out more like a Cersei or more like a Catelyn?

The thing is that Cersei went through kind of the same thing in terms of Robert. Robert wasn't quite as mean to Cersei as Joffrey is to Sansa but she married into this family for political alliances. So, some people could say that Sansa could go down the Cersei way but I think Sansa — at least I hope for her sake — she'll stick to her mother's side, to Catelyn. Even in the clothes she wears you can see that's where she belongs. In season two and season three you see her reverting back to the northern clothing and I think every part of her wants to be her mother.

As a viewer the atmosphere in King's Landing looks horrible, but I imagine that when you're there with Lena Headey or Jack Gleeson it's not quite like that.

No, we have the most fun ever on set. Jack's just super nice and Lena is hilarious. She always puts on this Somerset accent, I don't know why. We kind of play it back and forth to each other and we have a really good relationship. Everyone is just so light-hearted on set and joking around all the time so nothing ever gets too depressing, even when it looks that way on screen.

It must be tough for Jack playing one of the most despicable characters on television?

He's so nice and I just feel for him. But I mean it's a credit to his acting that he gets all this hate because he is the nicest guy and there's not one bad bone in his body.

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