Game of Thrones fans had countless theories about how the final season would unfold, with this past weekend’s series finale bringing the narrative’s journey to a close. As with all previous seasons of the series, some audiences loved how the events unfolded, while other viewers were disappointed with the story’s conclusion. Not only did fans have to say goodbye to the story, so did the cast members, with even some of the performers being disappointed with some of the final season’s events. Maisie Williams, who played Arya Stark, recently revealed that her biggest regret about the final season is that she didn’t get to share the screen with Lena Headey’s Cersei Lannister.
“I just wanted to be on set with Lena again, she’s good fun,” Williams admitted to Entertainment Weekly. “And I wanted Arya to kill Cersei even if it means [Arya] dies too. Even up to the point when Cersei’s with Jaime I thought [while reading the script], ‘He’s going to whip off his face [and reveal its Arya]’ and they’re both going to die. I thought that’s what Arya’s drive has been.”
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In the first season of the series, Arya witnessed her father get beheaded, due in large part to Cersei’s manipulations of her son, King Joffrey. Throughout the rest of the series, Arya’s quest to kill Cersei was one of the motivating factors of her overall journey, up until the penultimate episode when The Hound prevented her from fully committing herself to a life of vengeance.
“The Hound says, ‘You want to be like me? You want to live your life like me?’” Williams recalled. “In my head, the answer was: ‘Yeah.’ But I guess sleeping with Gendry, seeing Jon again, realizing she’s not just fighting for herself anymore but also her family — it’s bringing up all these human emotions that Arya hasn’t felt for a long time. When The Hound asks her if she has another option, all of a sudden there are so many more things in [Arya’s] life that she can live for, that she can do. It was a shock for me because that wasn’t how I envisioned her arc going this year. Then I realized there were other things I could play, bringing Arya back to being a 16-year-old again.”
Williams isn’t the only one wistful about the missed opportunity, with Headey also revealing her disappointment that she didn’t get to confront Arya.
“I lived that fantasy until I read the script,” Headey confessed. “There were chunky scenes and it was nothing that I had dreamt about. It was a bit of come down and you have to accept that it wasn’t to be. There is something poetic about the way it all happens in the end with her and Jaime.”
Do you wish Arya had gotten the chance to confront Cersei? Let us know in the comments below!
