Game of Thrones’ Sansa Stark has survived all manner of horrific violence, to the point where Sophie Turner, who plays her on the hit show that’s shortly returning to TVfor its eighth and final series, has begun ‘thinking about the domestic abuse and rape, and it spurred this little part of me that might be an activist.’
And although she's a grown woman with the ability to take care of herself, and now fight for others' rights, fans of the show are so protective of her they've been warning her fiancé, Joe Jonas, never to hurt her.
Luckily, the hate Sophie used to get from Joe's fans has simmered down a bit: ‘It’s better now, his fans have gotten a bit older,’ she told Harper’s Bazaar, adding: ‘If I’d been dating him during the years when he was appealing to the 14-year-old crowd, it might have been a bit more hostile.’
(She’s right, especially considering Sophie would have been not much older than 14 at the time herself!)
Quite unexpectedly, if you’re of the mind that it’s only teenage girls who have an overfamiliar interaction with their idols, Joe gets letters from Sophie’s fans: ‘The people who watch the show are quite protective of me because they’ve seen me grow up. They write to him and say 'If you do anything to her...if you break her heart...' It’s sweet. I like it.’
As for the pair's impending marriage , ‘We’re trying to keep it as low-key as possible so it’s more of an intimate thing.’ So intimate, in fact, that she wouldn’t be drawn on when her and the 29-year-old, who she says is ‘the most fun, energetic, positive person I’ve ever seen' will wed.
Though setting down aged 23 seems pretty old-school and traditional, Sophie's got some progressive takes on #MeToo in the entertainment industry. She explained that she's had some off stuff happen to her: ‘"I’ve had moments where I’ve thought in hindsight, 'That was not an OK thing for someone to do,' but I’ve never had anything as extreme as these awful Weinstein cases. Almost half the people you meet in the industry have some sort of tale to tell.’
Vitally, though, she thinks it’s great that the movement is ‘not just being publicly shamed, it’s proper consequences. It’s losing your jobs and going to court.’
And she’s even got herself an inclusion rider, meaning that each and every production she’s on has to employ as many women as men: ‘Now, you see women in the camera departments, producing, directing. It’s exciting.'