For eight seasons of Game of Thrones that literally took Maisie Williams from adolescence to adulthood, the actress is finally ready and able to take on a new world of opportunities that don't involve the complicated family lineages. Thankfully, fans didn't have to wait very long for Williams to lock down another big role. (It's not a spinoff, so don't be disappointed.)
Maisie Williams has been tapped to lead the upcoming U.K. series Two Weeks to Live, which sounds like a darkly comedic story about some pretty serious cause-and-effect situations. The new show is being set up at Sky TV.
In Two Weeks to Live, Maisie Williams stars as Kim Noakes, who grew up as something of an outcast, having suffered the death of her father at a young age. His death was tied to mysterious circumstances that caused Kim's mother to move the family to a remote location off the grid where survivalist living became the norm. (Can't imagine that'll have any significant impact on Kim.)
Now an adult ready to take on a world she's unfamiliar with, Kim sets out on her own to engage in a secret mission of sorts that's meant to pay tribute to her father's memory. That plan inevitably leads her to a local pub run by brothers Dave and Nicky, with the latter dwarfing Kim's own social awkwardness.
After a couple of drinks and one very ill-timed prank, Kim and the brothers are suddenly dashing around with a big bag full of stolen money while trying to escape detection from both a deadly gangster and the police. It's a situation that none of them want to be in, but it certainly helps that Kim's upbringing gave her good practice with handguns, animal-skinning, dance performances, and more skills that just might allow her and her new friends to evade capture and/or death.
All in all, it sounds like an adventure made for someone who was at least cut from the same cloth as Arya Stark, even though the Game of Thrones character would likely be out of place in a current day bar, or in a car. But it also obviously sounds like a role very far removed from the dragons 'n' zombies world of Westeros, and I can't wait to see how well that transition goes.
Here's how Maisie Williams herself put it in a statement.
Looking forward to getting into something new, I think Two Weeks To Live has really great potential and I want to make something incredible with this wonderful team!
Two Weeks to Live will get a six-episode first season, as created by Gaby Hull, who was a writer for this year's ITV thriller Cheat. It will be produced by Kudos, a shingle of Endemol Shine UK. The globally minded Endemol Shine International will be distributing the dark comedy.
It's a huge deal for this series to land Maisie Williams, who is definitely one of the most sought-after stars in the wake of Game of Thrones' record-breaking run on HBO. It's almost surprising that it wasn't another U.S. project that swooped in to sway her, but the actress likely wants to take on more projects that don't involve massive travel plans and long stints away from the comforts of home.
This will be the sixth noteworthy TV role of Maisie Williams' career, which will soon include the delayed feature The New Mutants. Beyond Game of Thrones, she also kicked off her small screen career with the miniseries The Secret of Crickley Hall. She's appeared in Robot Chicken, had a handful of appearances on Doctor Who in Season 9, and had a voice role in the animated series Gen: Lock. If fans get their way, though, she'll be starring in an Arya spinoff show in the next few years.
Maisie Williams isn't the only Game of Thrones vet to sign on for interesting follow-up roles. Recently, her one-time on-screen lover Joe Dempsie was revealed to be heading to TV space as part of Nat Geo's adaptation of The Right Stuff. Jaime Lannister portrayer Nikolaj Coster-Waldau signed on for the TV pilot Gone Hollywood.
While there isn't yet a specific release date, fans can expect to catch Two Weeks to Live debuting on Sky One (and on the NOW TV streaming service) in 2020.
