Why You Don't Hear About Maisie Williams Anymore

One of the few young British actors to make it without a private school education, aristocratic background, or famous parent, Maisie Williams became an overnight sensation in 2011 when she was cast as tomboy Arya Stark in "Game of Thrones," the eagerly-awaited TV adaptation of George R.R. Martin's fantastical series.

Unlike most of her castmates, Williams managed to make it to the 2019 final season without her character being slaughtered in the most violent way possible. By that point, she'd already started preparing herself for life outside Westeros, with notable roles in the long-running sci-fi show "Doctor Who" and one-off docudrama "Cyberbully," not to mention big screen parts in "The Falling," "The Book of Love," and "Mary Shelley."

But following the HBO hit's divisive ending, Williams has been a little quieter than expected. From business endeavors and charitable efforts to relationship troubles and casting setbacks, here's a look at her recent story.

Arya Stark, the character Maisie Williams portrayed for eight years on the fantasy phenomenon "Game of Thrones," was renowned for her tomboyish nature. This wasn't much of a problem when the actor was in her early teens. But as puberty took its course, the Brit found the process of hiding her more womanly figure increasingly hard.

In a 2022 interview with GQ, Williams admitted, "I think that when I started becoming a woman, I resented Arya because I couldn't express who I was becoming. And then I also resented my body, because it wasn't aligned with the piece of me that the world celebrated."

Williams went into further details about her uncomfortable stints in the costume department during a chat with Vogue. As well as having to keep her hair short, the star was repeatedly covered in dirt and had her chest tightly strapped to disguise any curves. She added, "I don't know, that just felt horrible for six months of the year, and I felt kind of a bit ashamed for a while."

After years of immersing herself in a fantastical universe, "Game of Thrones" star Maisie Williams decided in 2019 that it was about time she showcased her talents in the very real, very technological world of social media. Indeed, alongside film producer and co-founder Dom Santry, the actor launched her own platform, one which just happened to rhyme with her name.

Designed with the purpose of helping creatives get noticed and build some valuable networks, Daisie was a different beast from the likes of Instagram and Twitter. It doesn't have a follower count, for example, in an attempt to avoid the platform being based on levels of popularity.

The entrepreneurs spent a significant amount of time raising funds for the project including a mid-2018 trip to San Francisco which Williams described to Wired as "the most intense few weeks of my life." Luckily, all their hard work appeared to pay off. The app attracted an impressive 120,000 users within its first two months, with the actor adding, "We managed to really hit a sweet spot of these creative people who feel like complete outcasts and weirdos." She's since hosted a TEDx talk on her experiences and served as a creative strategist for another agency-bypassing platform, Connect.

In 2020, Maisie Williams proved once again that she's a good egg when she made a hefty donation (roughly $60,000) to the same animal rescue shelter from which she adopted her beloved dog four years previously. The "Game of Thrones" star is just as interested in helping animals, and indeed the rest of civilization, on a bigger scale, too.

A year later, the World Wildlife Fund appointed Williams as their first-ever Global Ambassador for Climate and Nature, a position which saw her introduce Sir David Attenborough's "The Green Planet" at COP26 soon after. In a press statement to celebrate her affiliation, the actor revealed how proud she was to be joining the fight against climate change: "I am honored and excited to be working with WWF where together we will give the opportunity for people to learn about critical parts of the natural world that are most at risk, and how we can all personally make a difference and preserve them for future generations."

Williams has also participated in several protests against the practice of dolphin hunting, campaigning in particular for Dolphin Project, the initiative set up by trainer Ric O'Barry. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter about her work, the Brit said, "It was something that just struck a chord in my heart. And I'm a firm believer that, if there is something that you really want to stand up and fight for, then you should."

After numerous reshoots and delays, "The New Mutants" finally made it into cinemas in the summer of 2020, three years after filming first began. Unfortunately, the wait didn't prove to be worth it. The "X-Men" spin-off bombed with audiences and critics alike, grossing just $49 million globally on a budget of approximately $80 million and receiving a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 36 percent.

Maisie Williams was one of the few bright spots in the film as Rahne Sinclair, a deeply religious Scottish teenager who must come to terms with the disconnect between her faith and the fact that she can mutate into a wolf. But even her talents couldn't stop studio bosses from pulling the plug on what was supposed to be a franchise.

Williams has taken all the backlash in her stride. After reading a Forbes review with described the movie as a "nothing-burger," the actor jokingly tweeted in response, "Sounds like a must see! Get your tickets now." In a 2022 chat with GQ, Williams revealed that despite the negative press, she still has nothing but fond memories of her work on the movie. She added, "I can't remember what publication it was, but someone said it was the worst Marvel movie ever made. I still feel kinda proud of that!"

Maisie Williams appeared in numerous films during her spell on "Game of Thrones" including Irish comedy "Gold," schoolgirl mystery "The Falling," and period drama "Mary Shelley." But since the HBO hit wrapped up, the actor has largely given the big screen a wide berth.

In fact, the only live-action movie roles she's accepted since "Game of Thrones" are of Rahne Sinclair in "The New Mutants" and pregnant teenager Mary in 2020's "The Owners," an adaptation of Hermann and Yves H.'s graphic novel "Une nuit de pleine lune." When asked by Elle about what attracted her to the part, Williams revealed it was a genuine love of horror.

"I think feeling scared is linked with a very positive feeling [for me], and it has since I was a kid," Williams remarked. "It's because I was exposed to a lot of really inappropriate horror films since I was really young. And now, the feeling of being terrified by a movie is an adrenaline rush that I'm really hooked on. With "The Owners" ... watching it with the score and the edit, it's so terrifying. And I am in the film!"

From "Game of Thrones" and "The New Mutants" to "Doctor Who" and "iBoy," much of Maisie Williams' career has been grounded in the worlds of fantasy and sci-fi. Little wonder, therefore, that she's offered similar genre work on a regular basis. But the actor now has little interest in taking on such roles.

In a 2020 chat with Variety, Williams admitted that she's now on a mission to reinvent herself as an actor, "People will happily cast me as similar characters to Arya or Rahne, and that's very easy for me to do and there's a lot of that available to me. But I'm really interested in changing people's opinions of me and showing people all of the other sides to myself that I can bare on screen."

So exactly how does Williams intend to do that? Well, her dream part is pretty wide-ranging, as she explained: "A lot of the stuff that I've done recently has been in an alternate world, and I miss the honesty of playing a girl who isn't a mutant or she's not saving the world. I [want to play] a complex woman of now and today. I think these films lack some kind of vulnerability, and I really crave to feel vulnerable on set."

Although you might not have seen Maisie Williams on screen much lately, you may have heard her voice. In 2018, she lent her tones to Aardman Animation's "Early Man," playing soccer enthusiast Goona. A year later, the actor was cast as Scottish hacker Cammie MacCloud in the cartoon web series "Gen:Lock." And then in 2022, she reprised her role as "Game of Thrones" tomboy Arya Star in the crossover fighting game "MultiVersus."

In an interview with IGN, Williams explained how challenging she finds the whole voiceover process: "At the end of the day, you are alone in a booth, and it's very hard to imagine a world that doesn't exist. You need someone who's really gonna bring you through that ... Trying to emote everything through your voice is ... I guess for some actors very easy, but for me, I do rely heavily on my facial expressions and my body language."

Williams also helped to bring an animated short to the screen as an executive producer of "Salvation Has No Name." Exploring themes of immigration and xenophobia, the film about a clown troupe whose storytime ends up blurring the boundaries between reality and fantasy was long-listed in the British Short Animation category at the 2022 BAFTAs.

Although Maisie Williams has been largely absent from the big screen in recent years, she has showed up in one major TV series, the Danny Boyle-directed "Pistol." Although you could easily be forgiven for failing to spot her, even if you binged all eight episodes.

Indeed, Williams was practically unrecognizable as Pamela 'Jordan' Cooke, the actor/model who, alongside icons such as Siouxsie Sioux and Johnny Rotten, is credited with creating the punk look that swept London in the 1970s. The "Game of Thrones" star had to sport a bleached blonde haircut, dramatic eye make-up, and various impossible-to-get-into rubber outfits for the Sex Pistols origins story.

In an interview with Vogue, Williams explained how much she enjoyed embracing her inner punk: "What I love so much about Jordan was the way that she used clothing as a political statement. Throughout my entire life, I've felt that the way that I look is different to the way that I am. People think I'm smaller personality-wise based on my exterior — but with Jordan, she had such a grand exterior, and with such nuance behind that."

In 2022, Maisie Williams sat down for a chat with entrepreneur Steven Bartlett on his hugely successful podcast "The Diary of a CEO." But it wasn't the reflections on her experiences in the business world that made headlines.

Indeed, the "Game of Thrones" star also used the opportunity to delve into her childhood, particularly the relationship with her father who, she revealed, indoctrinated her into a cult. Williams explained, "... I don't really want to go into it too much because it affects my siblings and my whole family. But that really consumed a lot of my childhood. Ever since I can remember I've really struggled sleeping."

Williams did explain that her mom escaped the clutches of the cult when she was a baby, and that she and her siblings were eventually rescued by her at the age of eight. Not that the star was on board with the situation at the time: "I get it, I was in a child cult against my mother. So I was really fighting it at the beginning, but basically my whole world flipped on its head. And even though all these things I was feeling — 'Oh, my God, I'm so glad I don't have to see my dad anymore' — it still was against everything I knew to be true."

Could Maisie Williams' recent absence from the screen be down to the fact that she appears to have no qualms about slating her own work? In 2023, Maisie Williams joined the army of "Game of Thrones" fans — more than a million to be exact — to express their disapproval over the fantasy show's final season.

The HBO hit famously underwhelmed audiences with the six final episodes screened in 2019, with one of the main arguments being that the complex narrative surrounding Daenerys Targaryen had been wrapped up far too quickly. And it turns out that the actor who spent eight seasons as the tomboyish Arya Stark agreed.

While appearing on her brother's Twitch channel, Maisie Williams revealed she'd just rewatched the series from start to finish. And it's fair to say that her review was mixed. "It definitely fell off at the end," the Brit remarked (via Independent), no doubt much to creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss' disdain. However, she did acknowledge that the start of the series was far superior: "I was heartbroken when Ned died, and I knew it was coming. For the first time, I could really feel the story."

Maisie Williams added to her list of philanthropic endeavors in 2022 when she joined forces with The Mazi Project, an initiative that provides gourmet ingredients and easy-to-follow recipes for youngsters from underprivileged backgrounds.

The "Pistol" star revealed to BBC News that she can relate to those in need of the service: "I didn't always live the life I live now. This is an organization that would have been incredibly helpful for myself and my family in years gone by. It feels like coming full circle, to be able to spread more awareness about what they do."

Williams, who was inspired to affiliate herself with the charity after attending a friend's fundraiser, revealed in an Instagram Live post that she's benefited hugely from her own culinary journey: "I really see how food as a fundamental part of life can bring so much good beyond just knowing where your food is coming from. It kind of builds your confidence as a person and, you know, (by) surprising yourself by cooking and treating yourself to these amazing meals."

Maisie Williams didn't appear to have any qualms about showing off her relationship with Reuben Selby. The pair regularly appeared on the front cover of magazines together, worked alongside each other on initiatives to tackle global warming, and made headlines at Paris Fashion Week for dressing in attention-grabbing his-and-hers outfits. But in February 2023, the seemingly happy couple announced they were calling it quits.

On an Instagram story (via Los Angeles Times), Williams explained, "Since we met five years ago, our connection always extended deeply into our shared, and separate, creative careers ... and it will continue to do so. This decision is something we are so grateful for as we can protect the magic, that we can't help but emit, whenever we put our brains together."

Luckily, Williams and Selby appeared to take their break-up in good spirits. While asking for her privacy, the former joked, "P.S. no further questions, please. We must protect our children (my dog)." And alongside a snap of the pair in happier, and typically fashionable, times, the latter commented (via TODAY), "Please don't be sad for us — just appreciate the fits."

Post-apocalyptic drama "The Last of Us" has undoubtedly been one of the TV success stories of 2023, with the leading performances from Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, in particular, helping it to avoid the curse of the video game adaptation. But the latter actor, who first caught attention playing Lyanna Mormont in "Game of Thrones," wasn't the first choice to play survivor Ellie.

Booksmart star Kaitlyn Dever had previously done a table read for the HBO series, while a one-time co-star of Ramsey was also in the frame. Yes, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, co-creator Neil Druckman confirmed he'd chatted to Maisie Williams about taking on the part of the plucky 14-year-old, adding that he needed someone "tough and vulnerable and wise beyond [their] years and also have a potential for violence."

Williams can take heart from the fact that she didn't miss out on the role because of her talents. She had simply celebrated too many birthdays by the time the drama went into production. The Brit was a full decade older than the character when filming began in Calgary in the summer of 2021. At the age of 17, however, Ramsey was a much more appropriate fit.

You might not have seen Maisie Williams out and about much over the past year simply because she's been busy working on two major forthcoming projects. And they were both announced in the same month.

In May 2022, news emerged that the star was to appear in an adaptation of "Joyce McKinney and the Case of the Manacled Mormon," Anthony Delano's true crime novel in which the titular oddball faces accusations of kidnapping and sexually assaulting the deeply religious object of her affections. It sounds like a dark affair, but the retitled "Sinners v. Saints" — in which Freddie Highmore shares top billing — is being labeled as a comedy.

And soon after, Williams was confirmed to appear in another European drama set in the mid-20th century. Instead of 1970s England, however, "The New Look" would see the actor travel back to 1940s Paris to play Christion Dior's French resistance fighter sister Catherine Dior. Apple TV+ is so confident about the original series that they've already given the go-ahead for a second season. Williams told Elle, "I had so much fun making this show and I think that it's going to be really impactful. It will bring together my love for fashion and also my love for acting — that makes me really excited."