A GAME of Thrones star has revealed what her life has been like since moving to the countryside in Sussex.

Maisie Williams shot to fame playing Arya Stark, a lead character in the HBO drama series.

The 25-year-old actress now lives in rural West Sussex with her boyfriend Reuben Selby.

In an interview with digital magazine Porter, Maisie said she goes largely unnoticed in her new hometown, apart from a few double takes.

“It’s hard to know what people are looking at though,” she said.

“Sometimes we will be in a shop and we’re like, ‘Are people looking at us because they recognise us or is it because we look weird?’”

She also said that she believes life in the countryside suits her: “I have just never felt better. What I’ve learned about myself is that I gain a lot more when I am alone, and it’s much harder to do that when you’re out on the scene.

“It’s hard to really let go and there is a tendency to give into pressures while living in that world.”

The actress, who was born in Bristol, said she was “battling” to meet perceptions of traditional beauty before she cut her hair into a mullet and bleached her eyebrows.

She said she had got “lost” in external expectations of what is attractive.

Maisie will next be seen playing Seaford-born punk model Pamela ‘Jordan’ Rooke in Danny Boyle’s new Disney+ TV series Pistol, and said that since the end of Game Of Thrones she has been seeking roles that “connect with all sides of my personality”.

“Arya was written as hot-headed and I catch myself in roles jumping straight to being accusatory or angry or upset,” she said.

“I’ve felt myself kind of melting away from that, because that isn’t the reality of a lot of people.

“But it was Arya’s reality, and maybe mine, so I do find myself jumping there as if it were my place of comfort. I’d love to leave the crying and screaming for a while.”

Maisie said she has also changed her approach to her own appearance, adding: “For the longest time, I was battling with wanting to look traditionally like what people picture as beautiful and I was getting really lost in that.

“Then, I cut my hair into a mullet and said, ‘Well, I’m not going to even try anymore and I’m just gonna do something which I think really suits me and is still very different to everything I’ve been doing but feels right.’

“I was never getting the ‘Oh my gosh, she looks so beautiful’ (comments) before, but certainly afterwards I was getting ‘Wow, that’s really cool.’”

Of her permanently bleached brows, she said: “When you’re known for something that feels disconnected to where you would like to go, every single public appearance is an opportunity to take a step closer to that destination.”