'Thought Arya was queer': Maisie Williams REVEALS she didn't see sex scene with Joe Dempsie coming
Arya Stark is one of the characters that fans of 'Games of Thrones' have loved and rooted for ever since the show first aired in 2011. Maisie Williams, who portrayed Arya in the HBO fantasy drama, recently revealed that she thought that her character was queer until the final season in 2019.
Williams wasn't the only one who felt that way about her character as Arya's tomboyish personality made fans speculate about her sexuality many times over the years, with many guessing that she might be queer or genderfluid given the way the character bent gender roles. However, it all changed at the beginning of Season 8 of 'Game of Thrones' when Arya was shown being intimate with Gendry (Joe Dempsie). Opening up about the love scene for the first time since it aired, Williams revealed that it "was a surprise."
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Maisie Williams, in interaction with Teen Vogue, disclosed that she "thought that Arya was queer." "The first time that I was surprised by Arya I guess was probably in the final series where she whips off her clothes and sleeps with Gendry," Williams said, adding, "I thought that Arya was queer, you know? So yeah, that was a surprise.”
The steamy sequence puzzled fans and critics alike and ended up making the headlines in the days that followed. 'GOT' co-creator David Benioff defended it, at the time, saying "some characters want to make love for the first time because they've never done it before." To add context, Arya and Gendry, in the scene, are on the verge of imminent death, and the former chooses to be intimate with Gendry as she wants to know what it feels like.
Maisie Williams also spoke about the scene with EW after it aired in 2019, revealing that she initially thought it was a prank by the showrunners as they have sent bogus scripts to the cast in the past. "I was like, "Yo, good one." And they (the showrunners) were like, "No, we haven't done that this year." Oh f**k," Williams said.
Joe Dempsie also weighed in on the scene, suggesting that the experience was strange for him as he had known Williams for a long time. "It's obviously slightly strange for me because I've known Maisie since she was 11,12 years old," Dempsie said.
