Game of Thrones 5: Sophie Turner on Darth Sansa

Sophoe Turner as Sansa Stark in season five of Game of Thrones.

Russell Baillie talks to the stars of Game of Thrones in London, ahead of the new season.

Sophie Turner has grown up on Game of Thrones. The budding English actress was in her early teens when she started playing Sansa Stark and she's now 19. She laughs that she and her character were thrown in the deep end - together.

Sophie didn't know anything about acting in front of a camera when she started; Sansa didn't know much about the ways of the world.

In the past four seasons, young Sansa has slowly emerged from her own deep end. She's gone from fairy tale to nightmare, from daughter to orphan, from hostage to exile, from innocent to co-conspirator.

Now paired with puppetmaster-cum-personal saviour Lord Petyr Baelish - aka Littlefinger - Sansa has shifted from victim to game-player.

Season five also finds the former auburn-haired, fancy-frocked princess all in black and putting up a tough front.

That appearance change is to disguise her Stark roots in an effort to survive and be reunited with her siblings, should any of them endure.

But season five is the time of "Dark Sansa" - or as some fans are calling her "Darth Sansa" - which Turner takes as a compliment.

"For the first time fans are rallying behind her," she says of the changes brought about towards the end of season four, "rather than being 'come on, get up and do something' ... and they love the look."

Today in London, though, Turner's long hair is back in the red. That's because like many of the new raft of stars GoT has created, Turner has found a starring role elsewhere - she's been been cast as the younger version of telepathic mutant Jean Grey in the next X-Men movie.

It seems those scenes where Sansa appears to be reading Littlefinger's scheming mind have come in handy.

Turner says she loves her "delicious", tense scenes with Aidan Gillen's Littlefinger and their age-gap chemistry.

"This new character of Sansa really kind of resonates with me, just because it is so exciting to have this girl who has gone through so much and she has got to the point where she has found how she can manipulate [Littlefinger] and actually get power for the first time in her life.

"It is just so exciting for me to be able to play that, rather than, you know, sad Sansa. It's quite nice to actually have some power and it's fun to not be crying all the time."

Turner says the plotlines of season five bring her character more than just a darker wardrobe.

"There are a lot of hardships in this season for her. She is thrown in the deep end again ... but it's Game of Thrones."

And while Sansa is going under a false identity, passing herself off as Alayne Stone, the bastard daughter of Littlefinger, she hasn't completely gone to the dark side, just yet.

"She is still a Stark. The Starks are noble. The Starks have good morals. She's not doing anything evil right now ... she is still doing things for the greater good but she is going about it in a different way."

Turner has devoted a fair chunk of her short existence to the show, having been there from season one.

"It has been my childhood and my teenage years and it is going to take me through into my adulthood. So it's been the biggest part of my life. It's been my growing-up. This is what made me who I am really."

- TimeOut