Maisie Williams addresses the possibility of returning to Doctor Who to work with Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor.
Game of Thrones may be behind Maisie Williams, but there’s another major franchise that she’d be happy to return to if given the opportunity.
Maisie Williams, a former child star, rose to fame with her role as the fan favorite Arya Stark in the hit HBO series Game of Thrones. During her run on the show, Williams also took a quick detour with a recurring role on Doctor Who, appearing in several episodes of Peter Capaldi’s run in 2015 in the role of Ashildr. She hasn’t returned to the series since, and her brief run in the show is starting to get forgotten. In a new interview with Collider, Williams marveled over how nobody ever asks her about Doctor Who, as she’s most often questioned about a potential Game of Thrones return. She also gave an enthusiastic response to the possibility of returning, giving praise to current series star Ncuti Gatwa.
“I’d love to work with Ncuti, that would be so cool,” Williams said. “I actually had never even [thought] about — People are always asking me about Arya, that no one asks me about Ashildr. So maybe! I would love that, yeah that would be cool.”
Will the Immortal Ashildr Return in Doctor Who?
Williams was introduced as Ashildr in the 2015 episode, “The Girl Who Died.” The character, a young Viking puppet maker, is killed during an invasion of her village by the Mire. Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor brings her back to life using Mire technology, though it in turn makes Ashildr immortal, leaving The Doctor to worry about the consequences. Capaldi’s Doctor would encounter Adhildr at different points in time in a handful of additional episodes. She was last seen in the Series 9 finale, in which she takes control of a stolen TARDIS to traverse the universe with former companion Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman), who has also become immortal.
Maisie Williams made no returns during Jodie Whittaker’s run, but it’s certainly possible she could pop back up as Ashildr in Ncuti Gatwa’s time as the Fifteenth Doctor. Her clear interest in returning is a good sign, given how she’s seemed much more apprehensive about ever revisiting Game of Thrones. It remains to be seen if Maisie Williams will one day make her return to Doctor Who, and the new season of the sci-fi series will arrive in May. In the meantime, fans can prepare to next see the former Game of Thrones favorite in The New Look, debuting on Apple TV+ on Feb. 14, 2024.
