Synchronicity: Maisie Williams

And who better to speak on personal revelation than an actor who’s grown up in the spotlight, a crucible of self-perception? Amidst the distractions of stardom, the Game of Thrones star’s enduring self-confidence has given her something we all should be envious of: she knows who she is, the path she’s on, and how to traverse the unpredictability of life.

With a range of diverse projects under her belt since the finale of Game of Thrones and a highly-anticipated Christian Dior biopic series freshly out on Apple TV, Williams finds herself increasingly grounded by her own private revelations. She takes the time to explain herself, responding directly and without hurry to my deeply personal questions about meditation, social pressure, and self-perception with honesty and an engaged sense of humble self-assuredness.

By the end of our conversation, I felt a sense of illumination from our time together: like my own philosophies around serendipity and the flow of the universe had been truly seen in a rare moment of human connection across screens.

For this feature, I wanted to present William’s thoughts unobstructed by anything more than this introduction. A snapshot of her current state of mind and own private revelations: perception and epiphany in a beautifully clear understanding of the world.

ON FEELING LIKE HER OWN PERSON

I’ve spent a lot of time alone over the last couple of years and I've spent a lot of time on self-development — a lot of yoga, a lot of meditation, a lot of therapy, and a lot of journaling. From a young age, the way I saw myself was dictated mostly by the way that I was seen publicly, but now I really feel like I can see myself for who I am — how people [feel] who are not in the public eye feel.

I used to think of myself as two people, like the famous side of myself and then the normal side, but now I feel like those two people have become one again. I'd say it's been gradual, [coming to my sense of self]. I think that it's definitely been propelled by meditation and yoga practice. Also, [there’s] something that everyone always says: “You turn 25 and then your brain closes over.” During my 26th year, I could really see parts of my personality or decisions from my past or conversations from my past differently. And that's just something that you can't control. It's just part of growing up, I guess. But for me, that was so profound.

ON DRESSING TO REFLECT A SENSE OF SELF

I think that this kind of idea — of “method dressing” — is not something that I invented, but have definitely adopted with [Pistol and New Look]. I think that I really started to focus on doing projects that I really, really loved — I’ve had such an influx of opportunity come in since being on Game of Thrones, which obviously puts me in a very, very fortunate position, but I think — with these two projects in particular — what’s been really nice is just feeling like they’re very aligned with what I want to do and how I want to be seen.

And so the press surrounding that and [the ability] to tailor my looks to the characters that I play has been just a really nice extension of the creativity that comes with my job. There’s not a lot of creative freedom as an actor: I’m not writing the scripts or picking the looks or whatever. So it’s nice to incorporate that level of creativity in dressing for press and for premieres and so on. I think that — really to get to that point, I think I just grew a lot, in [my] confidence in myself. Now I just feel excited to be in control of my image rather than feeling completely overwhelmed by it.

ON FINDING JOY IN THE SMALL MOMENTS

I love the simplicity of life, really. The things that bring me the most joy are just seeing my post lady, going to my local yoga place, and seeing some of the ladies that I practice with there — just real simple things.

I recently had my pipes freeze over, and so I went to my neighbor's house to take a shower, and I felt part of the community in a way that's just very simple and beautiful. I’ve just been nurturing my circle and my world to a point where I find these little synchronicities, which is really beautiful.

I think when you get really famous, your circle gets really small and you get less trusting and you get kind of nervous or whatever, and I think my circle is still very small, but in this beautiful little world that I feel like I’ve built, being able to being humbled by the water pipes and still needing to go and rely on someone such a beautiful detail in life. I was walking over to her house and right above her door there was this shooting star. I’ve never seen a shooting star before in my life, and I just felt like at that moment everything was aligned to where it was supposed to be.

ON TAKING REAL TIME FOR RELATIONSHIPS

At the moment, I feel really drawn towards nurturing incredible friendships and relationships that have been part of my life forever, but have never been a huge part of my daily ritual. Even though I do spend a lot of time alone, I feel like I have so much more trust and love in my friendships. The relationships in my life were always there, but I think I was too worried to call upon them in my time of need. Now I feel so secure with these incredible people who care about me and want beautiful things for me. I’ve always cared about them and wanted beautiful things for them, but it feels like now there’s a really beautiful flow and that trust is very strong when I’m with those people. I think [it comes down to] just making sure that you’re not just seeing someone so that, in your mind, you have crossed that off a list.

If you’re with that person and there’s something happening in their life where they feel you are open enough for them to be able to share those things and vice versa — I think that’s probably one of the key things that changed. I used to be like, “Okay, I’m going to go home. I’m going to see everyone and I’d spend three seconds with everyone that I wanted to see.” And the whole time I was like, “I’ve got to work on Monday and learn my lines and what was the point really, because no one has changed...” It’s [better] to think about those moments being sacred and being something that you put a lot of your time into or that can take up a real permanent space in your mind as [they’re] happening, rather than being stuck in the past or stuck in the future during those interactions.

ON EMBRACING SYNCHRONICITY

I walk my dog in the same place all the time, and I’ve been talking about how I really want to get a lamb because I have a big garden and I’d love to have a little lamb. I was walking and there’s this lady walking towards me with a lamb on a leash, and I was like, “What are the chances that I’ve met that crazy lady who has a pet lamb?”

Yeah, I just think that what I’ve really learned is that these synchronicities have found me in a really beautiful way, and whenever they pop up, now I really have the space to see those tiny little details that bring me the most joy and keep me on the path and make me feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. I can trust in that now and not feel like I’m just floating through time and space, never really landing or sticking anywhere, searching for who I am. I now just feel very present in this moment and am really just drinking it in, when these beautiful simple things happen.

ON THE FLOW OF THE UNIVERSE

I used to see myself as very driven and constantly moving and constantly pushing, but now I can just sort of sit and be taken, rather than feeling that frantic energy of I have to make the future happen. I feel like it’s all going to happen the way that it’s supposed to, which is definitely a calmer way to live life and definitely puts a lot less wrinkles on my face and gray hairs on my head, so that’s nice.

Culture

The Club Is Coming to the Stage

We enter and make our way to what is approximately front left of the DJ booth, where we’re accustomed to dancing at clubs in New York. “So is this a techno club or a dance performance?” yells an uncertain participant in my boyfriend’s ear. He laughs, bouncing along to Ben UFO, and yells back, “It’s both!” The club has long been a hot topic in European contemporary dance but it is only now making its way into New York performance venues, largely through transatlantic tours. R.O.S.E. follows recent examples like Michele Rizzo’s HIGHER xtn. at MoMA PS1 (May 2024), (LA)HORDE’s Room with a View at NYU Skirball (October 2023), and Gisèle Vienne’s Crowd at BAM (October 2022).

Do these performances compromise the club’s spirit — a space idealized for its anonymity, dark lighting, and thundering music? The notion of the club as a utopian escape is admittedly just that — an ideal — because of how its intense conditions can create barriers to entry. Still, the club remains sacred for many, a place to forge connections and embrace an alternative state of being. Looking at how performances transfer this spirit to new settings reveals what aspects of the club are essential and those that aren’t.

Sharon Eyal, R.O.S.E. 2024. Photography by Stephanie Berger, courtesy of Park Avenue Armory.

Eyal’s dancers make their entrance. The lighting shifts from roving blue to yellow spotlights as Ben UFO’s tracks transition to more melodic beats. Clad in deconstructed lace Dior lingerie with dark red tears painted on their faces, the dancers move cautiously in a tightly maintained pack, slicing paths through the horde with hoof-like steps and jerky leg extensions. After around ten minutes of this controlled choreography, the dancers vanish as the lighting shifts back to blue and Ben UFO picks up his dubby beats. The club, as we knew it, resumes. This cycle of tightly executed movements and free-flowing club-goers repeats several times, each time emboldening the dancers to plunge further into the crowd.

Clubbing in a building once built for the U.S. Army National Guard on Manhattan’s Upper East Side turns out to be surprisingly successful — at least for the audience. What starts as an awkward, scattered group searching for their non existent seats gradually gels into an engaged, bouncing crowd that erupts in cheers each time the dancers enter and exit. Performance patrons who might never step foot in a club find themselves swept up in its potential for communion, moving in unison with fellow ticket holders. But it isn’t until the very end of R.O.S.E. that the dancers finally break free from Eyal’s choreography and join the fired-up audience in a brief moment of improvisatory movement with the music. By keeping her dancers at arm’s length, Eyal seems more interested in the club as a backdrop for her signature movement style than wholly as a space with meaningful stories to be told.

Michele Rizzo, HIGHER xtn. 2024. Photography by Cameron Kelly courtesy of MoMA PS1.

Back in May, I attended Wire Festival, a multiday electronic music event at Knockdown Center that had no shortage of organically united dancefloors. It attracted a crowd of seasoned ravers who were eager to celebrate the start of spring as they danced alongside DJs who played well into the daylight. I left Wire in an afternoon daze to see Michele Rizzo’s HIGHER xtn. at MoMA PS1. My sleepless euphoria only deepened as the performance unfolded, starting with a lone dancer who looked plucked out of the festival.

The dancer, dressed in sneakers, baggy jeans, and a tight tank top, shuffled slowly into the gallery, perfectly in sync with the looping bars of an understated electronic melody. Soon, other dancers, clad in the same staple rave uniform, joined him — each having traveled from Europe for the U.S. museum debut of HIGHER xtn., which premiered at the Stedelijk in Amsterdam in 2018 and quickly became a fixture at kunsthalles and festivals across the continent. As the score’s tempo climbed, the choreography locked into a 16-count sequence, which the dancers executed with precise synchrony. They remained intensely focused, never making eye contact with each other, as they sought release in the endless repetition of synthesized beats. Once the dancers reached their limit, they stopped the sequence and exited the gallery, one by one.

HIGHER xtn. used the focused daylight of the gallery to highlight the meditative release found in the repetitive movements that dominate dark dancefloors. The performance’s restraint brought more consistency and intentionality than Eyal’s all-encompassing club construction in R.O.S.E. Yet both performances offer enticing entry points into club culture for those who may not frequent raves. Rizzo’s ecstatic, hypnotic repetitions reveal how the club can mirror other meditative practices, while Eyal’s interpolation of performance and clubbing helped hesitant audience members blossom by the end. Still, both works overlook one of the most underappreciated aspects of clubbing — its potential for individual expression. HIGHER xtn.’s pristine uniformity especially risks promoting the outdated techno trope that there’s a “right” way to dance to electronic music.

Maybe this shortcoming is, in fact, a benefit. For habitual ravers jaded by one too many sunrise sets, it’s a reminder to return to the club with more intention. If you pause and peer through the darkness, you’ll see hundreds of people moving to the same beat, each with their own subtle variations. This collective choreography is a ready-made spectacle that doesn’t need validation in a theater or museum. And when the music shifts slightly, you can watch the ripple effect sweep through the crowd while feeling the new beat in your body. Maybe this small bit of magic is best left on the dance floor.

Culture

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Culture

Porsche SCOPES Brings Art, Music, and Design to Toronto

The festival was a full immersion into Toronto’s dynamic creative energy. Day one set the tone with DJ collective Living Room, followed by an experimental performance by Claire Rousay that captivated the crowd. Jewelry designer Steff Eleoff unveiled her Porsche Taycan 4S art car installation—a bold fusion of automotive and wearable art inspired by her Sedona ring—while OVO Sound’s Naomi Sharon and DVSN wrapped up the night with powerful, genre-defying performances.

We witnessed SCOPES Toronto bridging underground and mainstream with day two’s lineup. DJ Korea Town Acid’s set paved the way for Angelphroot and Dameer’s debut of BASSMATI, a track blending South Asian influences with bass-driven sounds. Chippy Nonstop’s return to Toronto and Richie Hawtin’s extended set were milestones of the evening, proving that the city’s underground scene has a global resonance.

The final day featured standout performances from local pianist Harrison, Indigenous artist Tia Wood, and hip-hop visionary Sean Leon, who elevated his set with a live choir. Moonshine Collective’s film and musical performance explored themes of African utopia, showcasing art’s power to bridge culture and technology. Rising Toronto star SadBoi, who paused her tour to perform at SCOPES, further underscored the festival’s commitment to nurturing local talent.

Throughout the weekend, we experienced installations from artists like Mitsu Mitsu and culinary creations from Bar Mordecai, capturing the multifaceted creativity Porsche SCOPES brought to Toronto. This milestone 10th edition, open to all, allowed Toronto’s vibrant arts scene to thrive, underscoring SCOPES’ mission to celebrate local talent while connecting it to a global audience.

office had the chance to connect with rising star SadBoi ahead of the event. In our conversation, she shared insights into her creative journey and reflected on what performing and growing up in Toronto means to her and her work.

How are you, and where are you at right now? You told me you were traveling.

Um, I’m good, I’m feeling really good right now. I’m traveling back to Salt Lake City. I had a show yesterday in Seattle. I’m on tour right now with Coco and Claire.

How is touring life treating you? Do you like it?

I love being on the road. To be honest, I feel like I don’t know—like I’ve had good experiences and bad ones—but this time it’s really fun, especially with the people I’m surrounded by. It’s also the longest tour I’ve been on; I have about four more weeks to go. I’m trying not to think about how many days I have left.

Do you feel homesick?

Yes, because when I start thinking about how many days are left, I start to miss my dogs. I’ve just been trying to stay in the moment—I don’t even know what day of the week it is, to be honest with you.

Oh, sweet! What are your dogs’ names?

Jillian and Winston. I know, they’re crazy names.

You’ll be performing at SCOPES in Toronto, which is where you grew up. Do you feel like the crowd is different when you perform in Toronto compared to other cities?

Yes, I mean, Toronto just feels different because it’s home. Every time I come back to perform, something in my career has changed. The last time I performed in Toronto, people just wanted to have a good time, and I’m excited to perform back home again to see everyone’s reactions. I know it’s going to be different from the last time. It’s exciting to see your own growth. Toronto is a tough crowd, though. If we’re with you, we’re really with you.

So, they’re super picky? You have to gain their respect, or what is it?

I think Toronto people are in their own world, but when something really connects with them, they’ll lose themselves in the moment. But it takes something to bring them out of that. Toronto crowds are tough because even if they like you, they won’t show it outright until they’re really vibing with you.

It’s like a vibe check, right?

Exactly. They’ll enjoy your performance, but it’s hard to explain. When people visit Toronto, they often say, “Oh, you guys are so nice,” and I’m like, “I don’t think we’re that nice, we’re just polite.” Like, you can walk down the street, and no one will say anything, but it’s just our mannerisms.

You mentioned Toronto can have a moody energy, especially at night, and that the underground night scene there really inspires you. Can you talk more about what makes Toronto's nightlife so influential for you?

Absolutely, Toronto has this unique energy that comes alive at night. Similar to New York, there are the popular clubs everyone knows, but you need to find your niche—the people who know where the real parties are. I remember going to raves in high school yards, sneaking in because I wasn’t old enough. Events like Baby, Jerk!, and Yes Yes Y’all were pivotal, exposing me to DJs blending dancehall with EDM—something I hadn’t seen before. Toronto nightlife is moody and intense, but when everyone’s out, it’s like the whole city is alive.