Sophie Turner admitted she found about oral sex from Game of Thrones script

Sophie Turner has revealed that she first learned about oral sex by reading the Game of Thrones scripts as a young teenager.

The actor was just 15 when she debuted as Sansa Stark in HBO’s hit fantasy series, but said she had already been exposed to adult themes even earlier while preparing for the role.

In a resurfaced 2017 interview with the Sunday Times, the then-21-year-old recalled the moment she first encountered explicit content while reading scripts for the show.

"The first time I found out about oral sex was reading the Game of Thrones script. I was 13. I said, 'Wow! People do that? That's fascinating,'" she joked. "I guess that was my sex education. Being on Game of Thrones."

Backlash Over Child Actor Protections

The comments recently resurfaced on social media and have sparked a debate among viewers about how much young actors should be exposed to mature material.

"The underage cast members should’ve gotten edited scripts where intimate scenes were redacted or removed," one post read, while another questioned: "Actors aren't even supposed to get full scripts so why did they give her a script with sex scenes she wasn't even in?"

Others raised more general concerns about the treatment of young performers in the industry.

"We need more protection for child actors. It’s unacceptable that stories like this keep coming out, and it’s important to emphasize that the parents and the studios are equally responsible. your entertainment is not worth the exploitation of children on a mass scale," a third user said.

"People complain a lot about movies and shows casting actors in their 30s to play teenagers but I kind of think that can be a good thing with certain subject matter so we don't end up with situations like this," a fourth added.

Controversial Scenes and Public Reaction

In the same 2017 interview, Turner reflected on one of the show’s most controversial storylines, when her character was raped by Ramsey Bolton during a 2015 episode.

The brutal scene triggered outrage on social media at the time, something the actress admitted she had not anticipated.

"Sexual assault wasn’t something that had affected me or anybody I knew, so I was pretty blasé about the whole thing," she said. "Naively so. And then I shot the scene, and in the aftermath, there was this huge uproar that we would depict something like that on television. My first response was like, maybe we shouldn’t have put that on screen at all."

However, the Dark Phoenix star explained that the uproar made her reassess her perspective, and she came to a different conclusion.

"The more we talk about sexual assault, the better, and screw the people who are saying we shouldn’t be putting this on TV and screw the people who are saying they’re going to boycott the show because of it.

"This sort of thing used to happen, and it continues to happen now, and if we treat it as such a taboo and precious subject, then how are people going to have the strength to come out and feel comfortable saying that this has happened to them?" she added.

Years later, the mom-of-two has continued to stand by those comments. Speaking to Flaunt Magazine last year, she explained why she believes the storyline helped drive important conversations.

“I did feel - and still do - that Game of Thrones shone a light on things that many people were like, 'Oh god, you can't show that kind of thing' - and I understand it can be triggering, I totally understand that point of view," she said. “But I did feel we were actually doing a lot of justice to women and the fight women have had to fight for hundreds of thousands of years.”

She also reflected on how women have long endured "the patriarchy, being treated as objects and being constantly sexually assaulted," adding: "I don't think there's one woman I know who hasn't had a form of that."

Turner went on to say it can be frustrating when these experiences are dismissed. "That's because we don't [talk about] it enough - we shy away from it," she said.

"I think if Game of Thrones came out today, we'd definitely put some trigger warnings on there," she continued. "But I'm really proud to have been a part of Game of Thrones where they didn't shy away from showing atrocities that happened to women back then. I feel proud to have been part of the conversation."

Featured image credit: Dave Benett / Getty