Maisie Williams, the young Game of Thrones star who plays Arya Stark, is to play a victim of cyber stalking in a Channel 4 drama-documentary.
Williams will star in Cyber Bully, a working title, as a teenage girl facing an anonymous online stalker and dealing with peer-to-peer bullying and advanced computer hacking, and eventually fighting back.
While what happens to Williams’ character is extreme and presented in a dramatic format, the programme is based on dozens of real-life cases of cyber bullying.
Cyber Bully, due to be broadcast in early 2015, focuses largely on Williams’ character and takes place in a single location, with a supporting cast including Ella Purnell (Maleficent) and Jake Davies (X+Y).
It will be presented in the form of a real-time thriller, directed by Ben Chanan, who was also responsible for Channel 4 drama-doc Blackout, which imagined the catastrophic aftermath of the collapse of the UK’s electricity supply.
Chanan said: “The audience will be trapped with Casey for a full screen hour and we need an exceptional actress to play her. I couldn’t imagine anyone else in the role. Maisie Williams is not only remarkably talented, she also has an immediately likeable, feisty screen presence which makes you root for her instinctively.”
Channel 4’s head of documentaries, Nick Mirsky, said: “It is one of the most important purposes of Channel 4 to find new ways of engaging young audiences with the cyber world and the stories that play out on the internet. This film does exactly that in a way that is gripping, relevant and fiercely public service.”
Cyber Bully is being made by independent producer Raw TV, the company responsible for Blackout, with Richard Bond executive producing.
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