Sophie Turner: 'Sansa Has Inspired Me'

There’s nothing stark about this got girl's future

- Jessica Multari

Sophie Turner isn’t just rising like a phoenix from the flames of the hottest TV show in history – she actually is Phoenix.Her double role as Jean Grey and Dark Phoenix in the new X-Men film is helping the British actress say goodbye to a show and a character she’s grown up with in the most literal sense. ‘It’s emotional,’ Sophie says of farewelling Game of Thrones. ‘When we shot the final scene, which went on for something like five days, I was in tears. I was inconsolable for hours afterwards. I think we all were.’

Sophie was barely a teenager when she took on the role of Sansa Stark in the ambitious TV adaptation of George R R Martin’s epic series of fantasy books, A Song of Ice and Fire – and had no idea she was signing up to a slice of television history. ‘I don’t think we ever predicted it would be such a big success,’ she tells. ‘I remember saying goodbye to the creators, Daniel Brett Weiss and David Benioff, after season one when I was 13 years old. I was crying because I was like, “What am I going to do? Are we going to be green-lit for season two?”’

Ten years on and Sophie’s fondness for her character hasn’t wavered. ‘I have always admired her. Sansa has always inspired me so much. She has fulfilled everything that I had hoped for her. I feel so close to her that I understand everything that she feels,’ says the 23-year-old, which is why she’s struggling to close the book on that chapter.