Maisie Williams

Margaret Constance Williams was born in Bristol.[1][2] She is nicknamed "Maisie"[lower-alpha 1] after the character from the comic strip The Perishers.[3] Maisie is the youngest of four children; her three older siblings are James, Beth, and Ted.[3] Born to Hilary Pitt (now Frances),[4] a former university course administrator, she grew up in Clutton, Somerset.[2][5] She was mainly brought up by her mother, with help from her stepfather. Her surname comes from her father.[6] She attended Clutton Primary School and Norton Hill School[7] in Midsomer Norton, before moving to Bath Dance College to study Performing Arts.[8][9]

Williams and Game of Thrones co-star Sophie Turner in March 2013

In 2011, Williams made her professional acting debut as Arya Stark, a tomboyish young girl from a noble family, in the HBO fantasy drama television series Game of Thrones.[10] Chosen from a pool of 300 actresses across England,[11] Arya was Williams's first role in any professional capacity.[12] She has received critical acclaim for her performance in the series, especially in the show's second season.[13][14][15][16] HBO submitted her for consideration in the Outstanding Supporting Actress category for the 2012 Primetime Emmy Awards, although she did not receive a nomination.[17] She won the 2012 Portal Award for Best Supporting Actress – Television, and the Portal Award for Best Young Actor. At 15 years of age, Williams was the youngest actress ever to win in the Best Supporting Actress category.[18] In March 2013, she was nominated for a Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a TV Series – Supporting Young Actress for her work on the show and, in November 2013, won the BBC Radio 1 Teen Award for Best British Actor.[19][20] She has appeared in all eight broadcast seasons, in July 2018, she announced the completion of her role in series. The final episode aired in May 2019.[21]

In 2012, Williams played Loren Caleigh in the BBC supernatural thriller series The Secret of Crickley Hall and appeared in a Funny or Die skit titled The Olympic Ticket Scalper.[22] She also appeared in the independent films Heatstroke (2012) and Gold (2013), and the short films Corvidae (2013) and Up On The Roof (2013).[23][24][25][26]

In 2014, Williams portrayed Lydia in the British film The Falling, which premiered on 11 October 2014, and was released on 24 April 2015 in the UK.[5][27] In January 2015, Williams appeared in one-off Channel 4 docu-drama Cyberbully, and in February she received European recognition with a Shooting Stars Award at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival.[28][29] In Autumn 2015, Williams guest starred in series 9 of the BBC series Doctor Who. She appeared in the four episodes, "(6) The Girl Who Died", "(7) The Woman Who Lived", "(10) Face the Raven", and "(12) Hell Bent". She acted in the recurring role of Ashildr, a Viking girl made immortal by the Doctor. Williams's performance in "The Woman Who Lived" was described as "superb".[30]

Williams at the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con

In 2018 Williams played Goona a Bronze Age tomboy football enthusiast in Nick Park’s animated prehistoric comedy adventure, Early Man, alongside Eddie Redmayne and Tom Hiddleston.[31] From 18 October to 24 November 2018, Williams starred as Caroline in the stage play I and You, which was written by Lauren Gunderson. The play premiered at the Hampstead Theatre in London.[32][33] It was a box office and critical success at the theatre and was broadcast free on Instagram from 30 November to 3 December 2018 and again durring the last week of March 2020.[34][35]

In 2019 she starred in the voice cast of gen:LOCK, an animated series on the Rooster Teeth subscription service. Williams voices the role of Cammie MacCloud, a mischievous Scottish hacker, alongside a cast that includes Michael B. Jordan, David Tennant and Dakota Fanning.[36] Also in 2019 Williams starred alongside Asa Butterfield and Nina Dobrev in the teen drama film Then Came You, in which she played a teenager with a terminal illness. The film premiered at the Woodstock Film Festival on 12 October 2018 and was released nationwide in 2019.

Williams sang "Let It Go", from the film Frozen, in an Audi commercial that aired during the broadcast of Superbowl LIV in early February 2020.[37]

Williams at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco in 2019

Williams set up Daisy Chain Productions with Dom Santry and Bill Milner in early 2016 to develop and produce UK-originated short films, theatrical features and high-end television drama. Stealing Silver was the company's first production.[45]

On 1 August 2018, Williams launched the beta version of a new iOS-compatible social media app called Daisie alongside Dom Santry, with whom she also founded the film production company Daisy Chain Productions. Daisie is aimed at creative people from the worlds of art, fashion, TV, film, photography, music and literature. Its aim is to bring people across industries together, help foster collaboration with other artists and provide an alternative route into creative industries. Williams said "Our main goal is to have a community of artists who are collaborating with each other, uploading their work, sharing their projects and ultimately ... help people with their own careers, rather than our own”.[46][47][48] Williams said in 2018 that Daisie's focus is on giving the power back to the creator. “Instead of [creators] having to market themselves to fit someone else’s idea of what their job would be, they can let their art speak for themselves.”[45]

Williams at Paris Fashion Week, 2019

In May 2019 Daisie raised £2 million ($2.5 million) in seed funding from Founders Fund, 8VC, Kleiner Perkins, and from the newer venture capital firm Shrug Capital, set up by AngelList’s former head of marketing Niv Dror, who also separately invested. 11 days after the public launch, in May 2019, the number of users reached 100,000, most of whom were in London, as the bulk of its marketing efforts have taken place in the startup’s home city; with 70 per cent of user base being female.[45][49]

In 2019, Williams presented a TEDx talk in Manchester on the topic "Don't strive to be famous, strive to be talented", where she discussed Daisie.[50]

The Guardian noted in 2018 that Williams was popular on social media, with almost two million followers on Twitter, and nearly six million followers on Instagram.[51] In 2019 Williams and Reuben Selby appeared on the fashion scene as a couple. Selby is a fashon designer, the founder of a modelling agency, co-founder of creative agency and former communications director of his girlfriend’s social media platform Daisie.[52][53][54]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Maisie Williams.

• Maisie Williams on IMDb
• Maisie Williams on Facebook