Maisie Williams is starring in “Pistols,” a new series about the legendary band The Sex Pistols. She discussed the pressure of playing Jordan Mooney, a fashion icon, and the fact that the role required some nudity.
In an interview with GQ Style, Williams discussed her new part and how she was at first discouraged by its nudity demands. She said she was “hesitant at first just because of everything that happens in the industry and all the horror stories I’ve heard. I want to be in this show because I’m the best person to do this, not because I’m the only girl who’ll take her top off,” she said. Williams explained that the director of the series, Danny Boyle, helped her changed her mind about the nudity associated with the part, helping her view it as something she found empowering. “Jordan was a political statement,“ Williams said. ”Her entire ethos was turning the male gaze in on itself, and it was overtly sexual in a way that made other people feel ashamed. If I take my top off, I want to make other people feel uncomfortable.“
The role she plays is that ofJordan Mooney, a punk fashion icon who worked at the store where The Sex Pistols were formed and often performed.
“Game of Thrones” was a series known for its nudity and explicit sex scenes. While Williams was spared from most of these conversations, she did have a sex scene in the last season of the series that sparked a lot of conversation, even if there was no nudity involved. “if u feel uncomfortable just know that my mother and my step dad and my 2 sisters and my 4 brothers have all probably watched this too ahahakillmeehehe,” she wrote on Twitter at the time of the episode’s release.
Williams was 12 years old when she was cast in “Game of Thrones” and recalls that experience as one of the happiest of her life, even if it impacted her youth and caused problems for her self-image. “I think that when I started becoming a woman, I resented Arya because I couldn’t express who I was becoming,” she said.
