Do we like Maisie Williams?
Our score: 8 out of 10. A clean record on both tests, with real support for queer people and climate causes, though the public record is thinner than for some stars.
Maisie Williams was a kid when she landed Arya Stark in Game of Thrones, and she grew up on screen in front of the whole world. That is the formative thing: a huge role in her early teens, a lot of attention, and then a long run of figuring out who she is outside it. She has since moved between film, TV and a tech startup.
Her pet project away from acting was Daisie, a social app for creators that she co-founded with producer Dom Santry. TechCrunch reported in 2019 that it hit 100,000 members within days of its public launch and closed a $2.5 million seed round. The pitch was to let creators show their work rather than market themselves to fit someone else's idea of the job.
On the harm check, the record is clean. We found no anti-LGBTQ+ remarks, no conspiracy rabbit holes and no culture-war grifting. In 2021 she told Tatler she identifies as female and thinks fluidity in how people present themselves should be celebrated freely. In 2022 she said she had assumed Arya was queer.
On the planet, she spoke in 2019 about people in powerful places who still seem to refuse the science on climate. In 2021 she became WWF's first global ambassador for climate and nature. One catch: some commentators have accused her H&M sustainability ambassador role of greenwashing, though we only saw that in a search snippet.
The recent news is the Practical Magic 2 press run, and it's a warm one. She told Gay Times she always played Antonia as a sapphic icon, even though the film leaves the character's sexuality unclear. She also told British Vogue at the premiere that she once paid an Etsy witch to help land a role, and that it didn't work.
As for scandals, we looked for lawsuits, convictions and credible allegations and found none. The only old stoush was a 2016 tabloid headline fuss, and that was her calling out the paper, not the other way round. That's honestly a short list. We found no co-star or crew complaints either.