Actress Maisie Williams has opened up about her personal life in a way that fans haven’t heard before from her. Williams became a household name at the age of 12 when she took on the role of Arya Stark – a fan favorite main character on Game of Thrones. Behind the scenes, Williams now says she had a difficult relationship with her father.
Williams spoke about this touchy subject in a recent interview with Steven Bartlett on his Diary of a CEO podcast. She said that she and her mother “escaped” from her father when she was just four months old, though she maintained some contact with him until Williams was 8 years old. She did not give many specific details on the issues within her family, saying: “[I] had a traumatic relationship with my dad. And I don’t want to go into it too much because it affects my siblings and my whole family.”
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Williams did say that she was “indoctrinated” into a “child cult” in a way, and that she experienced “pain” and “fear” at her father’s hands. She said that it took years for her to understand how her father’s behavior was not right, and her rise to fame through her adolescence likely made that even more difficult.
“That really consumed a lot of my childhood. Ever since I can remember, I’ve really struggled sleeping,” Williams said. “I think a lot of the traumatic things that were happening, I didn’t realize they were wrong. But I knew… I would look around at other kids and be like, ‘Why don’t they seem to understand this pain, or dread, or fear? Where does the joy – when does that come for me?’ I had that feeling of impending doom and I didn’t know how to make that go away. There is a period of your childhood when things can stunt or alter forever who you are going to become.”
Williams revealed that the reason things turned around for her at the age of eight was because she disclosed what was happening at her home to a teacher at school. She said: “When I was about eight, there was quite a complex string of events that happened, but basically it had met its peak and I was at school and I was really struggling. I was taken by a teacher to the staff room. She asked me what had happened, she said, ‘Are you hungry?’ and I said ‘Yeah.’ She asked me if I ate breakfast, I said ‘No,’ she said, ‘Why not?’ I said we just didn’t have any breakfast, and then she asked if I normally had breakfast. They were asking the right questions. My mum came to school and picked me up. It was the first time that all of the doors were open and all of these things that we were experiencing were out on the table.”
Williams said that when she was first separated from her father she was terrified, and resented the authority figures that pulled her away from what she knew. She said that it took quite some time for her to realize that she was better off this way. She said: “I was so glad I didn’t have to see my dad anymore, but it was against everything I’d ever known. You can feel so liberated and free and at the same time, just like that impending doom is kind of still there. All your problems don’t just go away, you still care a lot about that person or the pain that led to those very, very poor decisions.”
Williams has not shared details on her home life before, so fans are intrigued by these glimpses behind the scenes. For now, it seems that she intends to keep the particulars to herself. Williams has two upcoming projects in the works right now – the movie Sinner V. Saints and the TV series The New Look. Game of Thrones is streaming now on HBO Max.
