It’s a hazy day at the height of a warm British summer and a blaze of August sunshine beams onto Sophie Turner’s face. She’s wearing a halter-neck scarlet red top against which lies her long, wavy, blonde hair: she’s the very image of summer. Turner is in her London home after moving back to the UK from America in 2023, and says she couldn’t be happier. She’s surrounded by a close-knit group of friends who she has known since childhood, as well as her two young daughters. “I just feel so at home here; I never want to move again,” she smiles. “Living in the States, I didn’t appreciate how much you need friends and family and how integral they are to your wellness until you’re away from them. I came back with an abundance of appreciation for them.”

Turner, who arrived on our screens aged 13 in Game of Thrones as Sansa Stark, recently returned to the UK following the dissolution of her four-year marriage. After announcing the news on Instagram, Turner, 29, found herself in the middle of a misogynistic media storm after an image circulated of her celebrating at the wrap party with the cast and crew of Joan—her acclaimed ITV drama from 2024. The media spun into a frenzy, accusing her of being an absent mother and party animal, while simultaneously labelling her former husband as the perfect father, at home with the children.

In the preceding four months, Turner had been working solidly on Joan and the wrap party was a chance to celebrate their hard work. Instead, the narrative was twisted into a series of stories shaming Turner, a working mother, in a sexist tale as old as time. “It’s like, ‘Yeah, mothers, you can work now guys, you don’t have to stay at home, but like God forbid you have a social life,’” Turner says with a sardonic bite, the experience still clearly raw. “It was horrific,” she says, remembering story after story that shamed her.

While all this was happening, Turner was given the script for Trust, a psychological thriller that releases in US cinemas this August. The work had eerie parallels with Turner’s own situation at the time, it being about a former child star who experiences her own media storm when her phone is hacked and personal pictures are leaked online. Lauren Lane, who Turner plays, is forced to retreat away from the spotlight and survive nefarious forces trying to silence her. “It felt like it was supposed to fall into my lap at that moment,” Turner reflects now, saying it was a case of art mirroring life. “It’s a very multi-faceted film. It’s a commentary on being a woman, on being in the spotlight, on being a mother too. I just couldn’t say no to it, because at the time I got the script, I’d just been through a similar media hell. It was such a cathartic experience for me for that reason—it kind of felt like taking a little bit of power back.”

Turner says both she and the director of Trust, Carlson Young (who was also a child actor), found peace in channeling their “own experiences” into the film. “I feel lucky to have worked on something that comments on so much that I have been personally affected by,” she says. Motherhood, too, she adds, was one of the biggest factors of change. “Being a mother has affected me more than I can ever say. I can now bring so much of that into my work and into this film too.”

Turner’s recent career choices have seen her playing several powerful women who fight against the patriarchy. Last year in Joan—her most critically acclaimed film role to date—Turner played a desperate mother who turns to crime to provide a better life for her daughter, rising to the top of a male-dominated criminal underworld. “I’m inextricably drawn towards these kinds of characters and I always will be,” she says of playing the likes of Joan, Lauren in Trust, and Sansa, all of whom triumph over disparaging anti-woman forces. “I’m never as strong as my characters are and I think it’s a way for me to let out my anger, frustration, determination that I’m too scared to show. I’m too anxious—I’m too much of a people pleaser—but I find that my real escape comes in the form of playing someone in their full power. But also, as an actor, that’s what it’s all about: it’s escaping yourself and becoming something different.”

She enjoys performances that bring catharsis too, something she found working on Trust, which she describes as “very healing.” Her character in the film experiences the gendered abuses brought to the forefront of the #MeToo movement. Turner says making the film helped her to process her own experiences here—both as a victim and as someone who also witnessed it happen to others. Turner is candid about the prevalence of #MeToo in her own life, as well as deeply aware of the industry’s lack of support for women across its history.

“I was probably 20 or 21 when the #MeToo movement came around. I had a good eight years before that of being in the industry and seeing just how much gets covered up and just how much you can raise awareness, complain, speak to heads of studios—whatever it may be—and your requests or concerns go ignored in the name of making money, basically… I worked with people who I’d seen really bad things happen to and it was just amazing to me at the time the way everyone would turn a blind eye.”

The ending of Trust is a powerful example of female strength and survival, too—something Turner impressively embodies today as she talks so eloquently about overcoming the struggles of her youth and the last two years. “I think with horrors or psychological thrillers, there’s always a temptation to leave it in quite a dark, disturbing place. But we worked hard on [not doing that] with the ending. For me as a person—not just an actor—and for Carlson, it felt like we deserved this ending, as did other girls and young women…It’s good for anyone watching this movie to come out and see that no matter how dire it gets, you can make it through.” And the film’s message? “Just don’t give up. Just don’t give up,” she repeats, with steely determination.

Turner is someone who learned to never give up from a young age. She was a confident 13-year-old in Game of Thrones playing Sansa Stark, earning an Emmy nomination for her portrayal of the Queen in the North on the most talked about show of the decade. As time went on, however, her confidence plummeted the more hellish social media became. 

“I think social media was just really becoming a big thing after I started on Game of Thrones, so I got a couple of years of peace and quiet and then I had to adjust. It had such a profound impact on my mental health, like more than I could tell you,” she says solemnly. “It almost destroyed me on numerous occasions.” Turner started to suffer from anxiety, depression, and an eating disorder; she’s spoken previously about how therapy “saved her life.” She still thinks it’s essential. “One of the most important things to me in my life is talking about mental health: it’s vital.” 

Turner adds that she worries for the young stars of today with social media now more toxic than ever. “I look at the kids who are about to be in the new Harry Potter and I just want to give them a hug and say, ‘Look, it’s going to be okay but don’t go anywhere near [social media],’” she advises. “Stay friends with your home friends, keep living at home with your family, make sure your parents are your chaperones—it’s so important to have that grounding adjacent to the big, crazy stuff that you do.’” What would she do if her own children wanted to follow in her footsteps into acting? “Oh God, they’re not acting!” she bellows, without missing a beat. “Not until they’re at least 25!”

On Game of Thrones, Turner was remarkably young when acting in some of the show’s more mature plot lines. She admits now she didn’t fully grasp the meaning of some of them due to her age. “When I was younger, I think there was a scene in season one or two where my character narrowly escapes a rape. I didn’t fully understand it…I was trying to figure it out in my young little head.” 

Later, she was part of one of the show’s most controversial storylines when her character was sexually assaulted at the hands of husband Ramsay Bolton (played by Iwan Rheon). While she says she “had more of a grasp of what was happening” (she was 19 at the time the episode aired) she understood the criticism the episode received. Turner still thinks, however, that it initiated important conversations. 

“I did feel—and still do—that Game of Thrones shone a light on things that many people were like ‘Oh god, you can’t show that kind of thing’—and I understand it can be triggering—I totally understand that point of view. But I did feel we were actually doing a lot of justice to women and the fight women have had to fight for hundreds of thousands of years—the patriarchy, being treated as objects, and being constantly sexually assaulted—I don’t think there’s one woman I know who hasn’t had a form of that.”

Turner admits when she says this to men now, many still don’t believe her. “And that’s because we don’t [talk about] it enough—we shy away from it,” she says. “I think if Game of Thrones came out today, we’d definitely put some trigger warnings on there,” she says. “But I’m really proud to have been a part of Game of Thrones where they didn’t shy away from showing atrocities that happened to women back then. I feel proud to have been part of the conversation.” 

Turner wants to create more work that continues to spark such conversations. “I do like to make things that people can walk away from and they feel able to change something about themselves or feel inspired to do something,” she explains. “I want to do more unusual stories—I want to do more A24-type projects where they’re super unique and very niche.”

She has two exciting new projects on the way too—a new heist drama called Steal which she describes as “thrilling,” and a new period gothic horror, The Dreadful, with her old Game of Thrones alumnus Kit Harington—who plays her lover in the film. As her half-brother on Thrones and someone she describes as “like a brother in real life,” she admits it was an odd dynamic on set. “We suddenly went, ‘Oh Shit! Why have we committed to playing a couple?!’ It was really weird.” Eventually, they got over the weirdness and had a “great time,” she laughs. “As ever, he’s the biggest, most uplifting big brother I could ask for, bar my own two real-life brothers.”

As our conversation wraps, Turner reflects that she’s relieved to be over the tumult of the last few difficult years. She says she’s gained strength from the support she received—especially from fans who called out the misogyny she faced. “I feel that if I’d have gone through that 10 years ago, I don’t think I would have had so many people standing up for me and seeing me. And despite it being horrific, I’m really grateful it happened at the time it happened. I’m out the other side now, but it’s frustrating that it has to get as bad as it can probably get for there to be a change that happens.”

She is content, enjoying hobbies like art and pottery painting, and of course, being a devoted mother who is surrounded by the love and support of her friends and family. “One of my favorite ways to relax is to sit on a sofa with a good friend and gossip with a glass of wine,” she laughs. “It’s the best.” 

Turner is now looking to the future, saying she wants to live her life to the fullest—something she says will also be the best thing she can do for her work. “What makes you a better actor is having so many life experiences and doing absolutely everything that you possibly can so that you can draw a little something from each experience,” she smiles. 

“It’s important to me to feel everything that a human can possibly feel so that I can bring it into whatever work I have to do. I want to live it all,” she laughs, before returning to the bright London sunshine.

Photographed by Nick Thompson

Styled by Karen Clarkson

Written by Elizabeth Aubrey 

Hair: Christian Wood

Makeup: Brooke Turnbull

Nails: Michelle Class

Flaunt Film: Rodney Rico 

1st Assistant: Isaak Hest 

2nd Assistant: Jack Beere

Production Assistant: Lina Levein

Location: Battersea Power Station Sky Villa