Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams calls for actresses to refuse 'hot girlfriend' roles

Williams wants actresses to reject shallow roles so writers stop creating them

Maisie Williams wants actresses to start refusing one-dimensional roles (Getty Images)

Maisie Williams is best known for playing tough Stark daughter Arya on Game of Thrones, but she's fed up of the majority of female roles being "the hot piece" and "the girlfriend".

The 18-year-old actress criticised TV and film writers for creating such one-dimensional parts for women and called on her peers to "stop playing those characters [so] they'll stop being written" in an interview with the Evening Standard.

Williams reckons Arya is a "fantastic role model for girls" but regrets the number of shallow characters she "sees first-hand and reads all the time" in scripts.

"[Character synopses] will say 'Derek: intelligent, good with kids, funny, really good at this' and then it will say 'Sandra: hot in a sort of cute way' - and that's all you get," she said. "That's the way your character is described, so going into an audition you are channelling 'hot', which isn't like a person, that's not who a person is."

Williams is not the only Thrones cast member to praise the HBO show for presenting strong women, despite coming under fire for its levels of sexual violence and misogyny.

Emilia Clarke, who plays Daenerys 'Mother of Dragons' Targaryen, said earlier this year that the female characters are empowered by their sense of self.

"You see them accepting who they are and embodying that with such power that it's palpable," she said. "I think that's the beauty of the show: as women, we accept our femininity and take strength from it, as opposed to trying to hide it and behave in a masculine way."

Game of Thrones is expected to return next spring.