Maisie Williams Discusses How Playing Arya Stark Was Detrimental To Her Body Image

Maisie Williams is best known for tackling the role of Arya Stark in Game of Thrones. Although, as it turns out, playing the character turned out to have some negative effects on Williams' body image over the yers.


Throughout a recent interview with Vogue, Maisie explained how her body started changing earlier into the show, however she was expected to reflect a boy for Arya's storyline.


"Around season 2 or 3, my body began to mature and I began to be a woman," she mentioned. Nevertheless Arya was still very much like attempting to be disguised as a boy. I had really short hair and they’d constantly cover me in dirt and shade my nose so it looked really broad and I looked really manly. They’d also put this strap across my chest to flatten any growth that had began. I don't know, that just felt horrible for six months of the year, and I felt sort of ashamed for awhile."


Maisie was left feeling uncomfortable with the changes taking place in her body while in a couple of expanses of filming because of what she experienced throughout her time on the show. But right now that Game of Thrones has ended and she's free of the constraints of playing Arya, she's determined to embrace the body type she was place on Earth with, not the one she was simply playing.


In several ways, she's deciding to wear more of a "feminine" fashion with the outfits she chooses for herself, and learning to really love her body again. This is the way Maisie has chosen to empower herself after the the discomfort she originally felt while filming, so it's good that she's noticed a way of getting past these beginning feelings and getting to a healthier place once more.