The Secret Behind Sophie Turner’s ‘Game of Thrones’ Hair

Sophie Turner knows a thing or two about a bad hair day thanks to her time on Game of Thrones.

While her on-screen counterpart, Sansa Stark, has been put through the ringer, the actress revealed that she didn’t make it out of the series unscathed, either, as the grease and dirt that built up on her character was actually real and unable to be washed away when she left set.

“For the first few seasons I was allowed to wash my hair because I was an aristocratic young girl,” Turner explained in a recent interview with InStyle. “Towards season five, they started asking me to not wash my hair and it was really disgusting.”

Thankfully, the crew behind Game of Thrones eventually took mercy on her.

“[In the final season] I wear a wig, so I can wash my hair whenever I want, which is nice,” Turner continued. “But yes, for a couple of years I was living with pretty greasy hair. [It was] really itchy!”

But Turner was not the only GoT star tasked with the duty of abstaining from washing their hair; her male co-stars were also reportedly asked to keep a greasy ‘do, something that caused some trouble with the HBO series’ icy setting.

“We would have the snow machines going so we would have little snow paper particles that would get stuck in the grease. It was disgusting,” she said.

Despite the troubles, Turner also revealed that Sansa Stark’s hair was an important aspect of her character, as it changed from season to season as her she evolved.

“For so long, Sansa’s hair changed season by season depending on who was influencing her,” Turner said when speaking of fan theories that the characters’ hairstyles are symbolic. “The first few episodes she was a Northerner in Winterfell and took after her mother with a simple braid down the back. Then when she went to King’s Landing it was a big, decadent halo that was very much like what the Queen wore. With Littlefinger, she dyes her hair black and wears all black. Then she goes back to Winterfell and returns to her mother’s hair.”

“She created her own identity in season 7 and that kind of runs through to season 8,” she continued. “She’s chosen how she wants her hair to be, and she’s finally the leader and influencer instead of being influenced by everyone else.”

Game of Thrones‘ six-episode eighth and final season premieres on HBO on April 14.