Lorna Irvine looks at another rising star of TV and film.
Actor and dancer Maisie Williams may just be eighteen years old, but she has the self-possessed quality of someone much older. She's outspoken, smart and a fine, naturalistic actor.
Game Of Thrones has made her a household name, but having never seen it, I couldn't comment. (No, really. Not one frame.)
Instead, I want to focus on Cyberbully, a fine one-off teen drama, the likes of which are all too rare these days: it was intelligent, sensitively handled and Maisie's portrayal of Casey Jacobs was a revelation. She was an arrogant, callow little bitch, whose bullying and trolling of girls on the Internet resulted in a girl's suicide. So the tables were turned on her: thus, the bully became the bullied.
It made no concessions to easy answers and refused to soft-soap the uncomfortable issues of body image, instant celebrity and self-harm. Jacobs was horrible, and yet you felt for her, putting her behaviour down to peer pressure and naivety. It's an issue close to her heart, as she has spoken in recent interviews of having been trolled, scrolling down abusive messages with her mother sitting next to her.
Her next project also sounds intriguing, a British film called The Falling, set in a girl's school in 1969 where games of same-sex obsession lead to danger. It could be the new Heavenly Creatures.
Eschewing obvious paths is what makes Williams an interesting prospect. Here's hoping she doesn't go all Jaime Winston, and court controversy for the sake of it.
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