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Welcome to Maisie Williams Online, your online source for everything Maisie Williams! Maisie is best known for her role in Game Of Thrones as Arya Stark, and her latest projects is the upcoming mini-series Pistol. Here you'll find the latest news, high quality photos, and media on Maisie. Check out the site and please come back soon!
A Quiet Rebellion with Maisie Williams | Net A Porter
admin   April 19, 2022   No Comment   2021-Pistols - Gallery Update - News&Updates - Photoshoots - Television Series



NetAPorter-

From wielding a sword on Game of Thrones to redefining the face of modern beauty on the red carpet, MAISIE WILLIAMS has long harnessed the power of her own femininity to break down barriers and confront cultural stereotypes. Now set to star in Danny Boyle’s hotly anticipated punk-scene series, Pistol, the actor is staging another, quieter act of anarchy in the British countryside – and, as she tells NAOMI PIKE, she’s never felt happier

On

a sunny spring morning in the middle of rural West Sussex, in the south-east of England, Maisie Williams is extending into a warrior pose on the mat next to mine. She and her boyfriend, fashion designer Reuben Selby, swapped life in London for the slower pace of the British countryside almost a year ago, and the yoga studio is her choice of meeting point today. It feels quite far from the haunts that actors of a similar age and trajectory might be frequenting – but that’s not Williams’s style.

Here, in rural England, the 25-year-old, who is most recognizable as child assassin and heroine of Game of Thrones Arya Stark, can enjoy her leisure time – practicing yoga, taking meditation classes, visiting farm shops, hanging out in the local library – largely unnoticed, save for a few double takes. “It’s hard to know what [people] are looking at though,” she laughs, as we tuck into a corner in her neighborhood café after our class finishes. “Sometimes we will be in a shop and we’re like, ‘Are people looking at us because they recognize us or is it because we look weird?’” Together, Williams and Selby have become a fixture on the front rows at fashion weeks, assuming the role of poster couple for Gen-Z’s fluid approach to dress. But if they look at home in their matching Thom Browne kilts in Paris, wait until you see them in West Sussex – kaleidoscopic hair colors still intact.

“You know what? I have just never felt better,” she shares. “What I’ve learned about myself is that I gain a lot more when I am alone, and it’s much harder to do that when you’re out on the scene. It’s hard to really let go and there is a tendency to give into pressures while living in that world. That’s not to say those who choose to do that aren’t also completely freely expressing themselves, but that’s not how I am going to find any more clarity in my life. [Moving out here] is like my own little quiet rebellion.”

And rebellion is on her mind: Williams’s latest star turn is playing Pamela “Jordan” Rooke in Danny Boyle’s Pistol, a six-episode retelling of punk’s most potent years and the turbulent formation of the Sex Pistols. For Williams, it’s a graduation from feisty Stark (the role that made her a household name at the age of 12), with Rooke’s formidable punk aesthetic credited for much of the movement’s most ingenious ensembles and lasting influence. Our interview takes place two weeks before the sad news of Rooke’s passing, following a short illness with a rare form of cancer at the age of 66. Williams emails a personal tribute in the days that follow, writing: “The news of Jordan’s passing has left me feeling quite heartbroken. The universe has strange ways of working and, although Jordan will not get to see her legacy portrayed on screen, her legacy is rooted deep within the fabric from which the show was made. She is an icon of the purest definition and I replay our time together with great admiration. I feel grateful to have spent time with her, and the impact her image has had on the liberation of women’s bodies will be felt by us all for the rest of time.”

The first glimpse of Williams in the show sees her boarding a train in the coastal town of Seaford, dressed in a completely transparent trench and donning Rooke’s towering peroxide-blonde beehive. It’s the same train journey Rooke would take while working at Sex, the boutique run by Vivienne Westwood (played in the series by Talulah Riley) and Malcolm McLaren (Thomas Brodie Sangster) in London’s Chelsea. “Every single day, walking on set, I turned heads. It did make me feel very, very powerful and confident. Even amongst all the punk clothes, Jordan still stood out,” Williams says.

“I’ve always been the YOUNGEST one in the room, who didn’t particularly KNOW what they were doing; and, all of a sudden, I was one of the OLDER ones in the room – who did know what they were doing”

Indeed, Rooke served as a consultant on the series and her involvement was a crucial element of the experience for Williams. “I started [preparing for the role] by diving straight into the book she wrote in 2019 called Defying Gravity: Jordan’s story. I knew that, even with all of this context, there would only be a limited number of opportunities to tell her story. She was the most important resource for all of us; she saw it all and was there from the very beginning, before the Pistols were the Pistols… it’s very important to create something that she loves,” Williams says, expressing how she thrived off the punk icon seeing her performance and being part of the show. Sadly, Rooke’s passing came a few weeks before its release.

Although the cast features recognizable faces, it also introduces a new generation of British actors stepping into their first central roles: Iris Law, Louis Partridge and Anson Boon among them. “I’ve always been the youngest one in the room, who didn’t particularly know what they were doing; and, all of a sudden, I was one of the older ones in the room – who did know what they were doing,” says Williams. “It was a shock, but I really used it to channel Jordan’s authority.”

“I’ve got to a STAGE where I’m not trying to nail down who it is that I am in my MIND. Instead, I’m just trying to listen to how I feel and why I feel that way. In doing that, I’ve started FEELING a lot more comfortable”

The roles that Williams gravitates towards now are ones that allow her to “connect with all sides of my personality,” she says. “Arya was written as hot-headed and I catch myself in roles jumping straight to being accusatory or angry or upset. I’ve felt myself kind of melting away from that, because that isn’t the reality of a lot of people. But it was Arya’s reality, and maybe mine, so I do find myself jumping there as if it were my place of comfort… I’d love to leave the crying and screaming for a while.”

Given that Williams’s job requires her to spend a great deal of time exploring different facets of people’s personalities, does she feel she has a greater understanding of her own identity as a result? “I definitely spend a lot of time thinking about it,” she says. “But we are only ever making observations in relation to our own worldview and, for that reason, you’re constantly going, ‘So who am I in all of this?’ I know I’m not unique in my experience, as a lot of people stand and look in the mirror and go, ‘I don’t know who I am’. That is just part of being human. I’ve got to a stage where I’m not trying to nail down who it is that I am in my mind. Instead, I’m just trying to listen to how I feel and why I feel that way. In doing that, I’ve started feeling a lot more comfortable.”

Our conversation moves to fashion and, specifically, the black, semi-sheer, asymmetrical JW Anderson dress that she wore to the Emmy Awards in September 2019, a ceremony that saw Game of Thrones win Outstanding Drama Series. Created in collaboration with Selby, the moment marked a clear shift in Williams’s style evolution, moving away from the more girlish A-line dresses of her early red-carpet appearances. “I’ve been collaborating with Reuben since we fell in love, but collaborating with Jonathan [Anderson] was really important and, at that point, his brand was worlds apart from what I’d been known for… I don’t know if [Anderson] would even know, but he was hugely important in changing my public image. I’m really grateful for that. And I loved the dress. When I look back at that night now, which was very heavily linked to my career, I can also see it was really connected to here, too,” she offers, gesticulating towards herself.

In the time since, Williams’s perspective of her public image has also shifted. “For the longest time, I was battling with wanting to look traditionally like what people picture as beautiful and I was getting really lost in that,” she says. “Then, I cut my hair into a mullet and said, ‘Well, I’m not going to even try anymore and I’m just gonna do something which I think really suits me and is still very different to everything I’ve been doing but feels right. I was never getting the ‘Oh my gosh, she looks so beautiful’ [comments] before, but certainly afterwards I was getting ‘Wow, that’s really cool.’”

“I have seen and EXPERIENCED opportunities that someone maybe 25 years ago would never have had. I think that we’re starting to see FEMALE characters take better shape – and the OPPORTUNITIES are just so much wider”

Williams favors directional pieces from brands such as Prada, as well as emerging young designers, to contribute to this aesthetic – though nothing permeates quite as strongly as her now permanently bleached brows. “When you’re known for something that feels disconnected to where you would like to go, every single public appearance is an opportunity to take a step closer to that destination,” she says.

Since 2018, Daisie – the app that Williams set up as a platform to find and showcase creative talent – has allowed the actor to add strings to her bows beyond life in front of the camera. Case in point: she’s recently been wearing her producer’s hat to work on a short film in South Wales.

“It’s less about wanting to be a producer and more that I want to help make things that are cool,” Williams shares, aware of her own status and draw. “The industry is a better place when we can provide opportunities. Whenever there’s anything exciting or interesting that people are drawn to, it’s always coming from a new perspective.”

And then the actor’s iPhone chimes. It’s her manager with news that a not-yet-announced role she’s been vying for over the past few months is hers for the taking. Although she remains hush on the details, Williams is clearly thrilled. “I have seen and experienced opportunities that someone maybe 25 years ago would never have had,” she says about the shifting perceptions around lead women’s roles. “I think that we’re starting to see female characters take better shape. We’re really lucky to be coming up at this time because the opportunities are just so much wider.”

We walk back to her Tesla, nestled amongst a sea of Fords and Volvos, and I ask whether – if I were to show the Maisie of two years ago where she is today – she would be pleased? “Absolutely. You never know when you’re in it that things are gonna be so much better on the other side,” she replies, before returning to her quiet, rural riot.

Pistol is streaming from May on Hulu and/or Disney+

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