LONDON — Maisie Williams has the best and worst job of playing everyone’s favourite Game Of Thrones character: Feisty young Arya Stark.

When a hugely popular fantasy series like George R R Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire is translated into a television show, it’s inevitable that fans of the books compare the TV series to their imaginations.

“When I first got the part, people said that I don’t have a long enough face. Because I think Arya’s described as a horseface (in the books). I guess that’s not a bad comment!” quipped Williams, 15.

Arya Stark’s beloved status in fans’ eyes is a bit of a double-edged sword for Williams — bringing the character to life is no easy task, even though she has risen to it admirably.

“When I first started, I didn’t have a clue about Game Of Thrones or anything, and I think it’s probably a good thing, because if I’d auditioned for it knowing what I was going to be doing three years up the line, I think I would have freaked out a lot more and been a lot more nervous about it,” the young actress said. “So, yeah, I think it’s a lot of pressure, and every year that pressure gets a lot higher and I get a lot more nervous.”

Meeting Martin didn’t help calm her nerves. “I was a bit intimidated because I know he likes Arya. I wanted to do him proud as well,” Williams added.

Did Martin, who is still working on completing the series, tell her how the story ends? “No,” she moaned. “Every time I sit there and he sort of goes near to the topic and then swoops away again, I’m like, ‘Awww’. I want to know just as much as everyone else. I guess it’s a lot of stress for him as well, to come up with this story that everyone loves. He’s told me about all the plans that he has and he knows the ending but he doesn’t know how he’s going to get there yet, and how he has so much fun writing and making up everything that everyone else loves. Sometimes I freak out and I just wonder how he must be feeling.”

With Game Of Thrones being famous for its explicit scenes of carnage and carnality, what is it like to star in a series that she is too young to watch? “It’s a bit odd when I’m talking to my friends,” Williams giggled. “I invited them all over the first episode and then I was like, ‘Maybe that wasn’t a good idea’, and then got all their mums’ phone numbers and was like, ‘Is it okay?’” Still, she asserted, “I would definitely prefer it to being in some teen High School Musical kind of thing.”

For the Somerset schoolgirl, fame is still a new experience. “I hit 50,000 followers on Twitter recently. Yay! And that was strange,” she mused. “I live in a tiny little sleepy village called Clutton … This stuff doesn’t happen to people like me at all. And I know a lot of people say that, but it doesn’t … I don’t think I’ll ever get used to people recognising me in the street.”

Juggling schoolwork with television acting hasn’t been easy, either. “Everyone’s like, ‘Why don’t you ever come?’ I’m never really going to fit into a school permanently, and I won’t have to for much longer because I’m nearly finished, but it’s been weird, like new people asking questions, and, ‘Oh, it’s the famous girl’.

“It was really, really difficult trying to get back in with friendship groups and with a class — they’ve moved on so far and I’m always at the back going, ‘I don’t quite understand’ … I guess it’s the price I pay for having so much fun.”

“Fun” could well be an understatement. In store for Arya this new season, said Williams, is “more mischief and trouble, and more people telling her no, and her fighting back”.

Catch the new season of Game Of Thrones starting April 20 at 9pm on HBO.