The Game of Thrones star plays the lead role in an upcoming Channel 4 drama about online abuse. It’s something she has experienced first-hand.
Ed Miller / Channel 4
Cyberbully is a gripping one-off Channel 4 drama that examines the consequences of cyberbullying, trolling, and webcam hacking. It's charged, it's unnerving, and it stars Maisie Williams in the lead role of Casey Jacobs. Best known for playing Arya Stark in Game of Thrones, Williams is alone on screen in a single location for the drama's entirety.
"It is just a very current subject and something that I feel passionate about," Williams said, shortly after talking to a room full of journalists and members of anti-bullying charities about how she had been cyberbullied herself on Formspring. "I've been on a train, right next to my mum with my phone in my hand," she had told them, "scrolling through constant abuse right next to my mum and feeling completely on my own."
The drama is not based on a true story, but it was inspired by several extreme cases in America that were woven together to form a plot. Asked by BuzzFeed News if she felt a responsibility to do this drama, given that she's both relatable and respected and hugely popular among young people on Twitter and Instagram, and won the Radio One Teen Awards last October, she demurred: "I dunno if I am relatable. I am relatable to people who are just like me, [but] I don't think I am relatable to everyone."
She was very concerned about coming across to fans as entitled. "To ever think that you are superior, that you have done something..." she said. "That is just the first step in the wrong direction, really."
Maisie Williams / instagram.com
No comments:
Post a Comment