Maisie Williams Is Not Coming Back to Doctor Who
Actress Maisie Williams reveals that her run on Doctor Who is permanently finished.
Among the many surprises that Doctor Who teased coming into its fall 2015 season was a heralded guest spot by Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams. While the mysterious role had Whovians spinning in speculation, Williams’ character Ashildr, a.ka. “Lady Me,” turned out to be something quite unique. However, it seems that the role has run its course.
In an interview with BANG Showbiz (via Digital Spy), Williams spoke candidly about the prospect of her reprising the role of the immortal maker of machinations. It seems that, as far as Williams is concerned, the role of Ashildr/Me might as well be for “no one,” because she is apparently finished with the series. As Williams states unequivocally:
“I’m not going to be working on Doctor Who again. Everyone’s hyping about it, which is very exciting, but I guess that’s more of a publicity thing. But no, I’m not going to return, I have a lot of other really exciting projects lined up instead.”
Actually making her acting debut as a teen on Game of Thrones in 2011, Williams has been slowly expanding her repertoire towards roles that are not Arya Stark after having come of age. Indeed, as Williams implies, she has “exciting projects” lined up in roles for major features such as sci-fi film iBoy, The Devil in the Deep Blue Sea and Arrivals, which all await her during her Game of Thrones downtime.
Yet, Williams’ heavily hyped Doctor Who run turned out to be, thus far, the most poignant performance of her young career. The role actually allowed Williams to get surprisingly deep in range, first manifesting as a young Viking girl, Ashildr, saved by the Doctor from death with an immortality-endowing Mire repair kit. The character made subsequent appearances in different eras in the Doctor’s time travels, even into the future and at the very end of the universe, each time increasingly bitter about her long life and making occasional trouble for her former life-saver.
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However, as Jenna Coleman’s role as the Doctor’s companion, Clara, came to a tragic end, a time-bending takeback of sorts was implemented. While the fate of her death remained sealed, Clara, also rendered ageless after being frozen in time, was left to explore space and time with Ashildr/Me for an unspecified time before she faces her set death at the hands of Quantum Shade. Thus, like Coleman’s Clara, Williams’ Ashildr/Me seems to already have been given a proper sendoff.
In the meantime, after experiencing a major showrunner switch, Doctor Who won’t be back until the 2016 Christmas special. However, you can catch Maisie Williams’ return to Game of Thrones in the midst of a blinding predicament when Season 6 premieres on April 24 on HBO.
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