Rose Leslie Talks Joining 'Game of Thrones' and Playing Ygritte

Rose Leslie, who played 'Gwen' the housemaid on Downton Abbey talks to Access Hollywood about her new role as 'Ygritte' on Game of Thrones. Rose will finally be making her appearance as 'Ygritte' this weekend!

In the interview she took Access through the casting process, joining the series, and what viewers should know ahead of Sunday’s big episode:

AccessHollywood.com: So before we get into ‘Game of Thrones,’ a lot of people are going to recognize you as Gwen, the maid-turned-secretary in Season 1 of ‘Downton Abbey.’ Would you be interested in a cameo if they were to call?

Rose Leslie: There is no way I would ever say, ‘No.’ I had the most fantastic time filming ‘Downton.’ I really did, so I would love to go back, but… I was always told that I would only ever be in the first [season]. I always knew that my character would have a happy ending at the end of it all. [Leaving the show] didn’t come as a shock… But it was fantastic. I loved it.

Access: Did the people at ‘Game of Thrones’ know you from ‘Downton’? Did you think it helped at all when you were called to audition?

Rose: I definitely think it opened doors for me and what was so fantastic about ‘Downton’ being showed over in the states, was that it helped get me noticed and I know that [‘GOT’ executive producer] David Benioff actually mentioned it to me, I think it was on my first kind of audition going for Ygritte. He was like, ‘We’ve seen you in ‘Downton Abbey’ and we like the whole like Northern accents thing.’ And I [thought], ‘Oh! Great! Well, obviously that was working in my favor.’ So, yeah… I definitely think it helped me, which is lovely.

Access: You’ve said you went for your ‘GOT’ audition and it was full of redheaded girls – more than you’d ever seen in one place…

Rose: There’s so many of us (laughs).

Access: Did you feel a bit like, ‘I’m with my people now’?

Rose: I so did. I was like, ‘I’m back with my crew, my true, true crew. All of us redheads together in one room.’ It was amazing and I’m sure I’m not the only redheaded girl in that room who thought the same thing. You kind of looked around and you’re like, ‘Wow, this so cool. Guys, we gotta go for a drink. This is amazing, this has never happened to me before where there’s more than five people who are redheads in one room.’

Access: What was your first reaction when you found out you’d been cast? Were you screaming?

Rose: I did. I jumped for joy. I was walking down the street so I was kind of surrounded by strangers and they must have thought I was like completely just a massive weirdo because I know that I jumped up and down and kind of was like ‘You’re joking! You’re joking!’ kind of thing to [my manager]. He’s like ‘No, no, no.’ It was amazing news. I was very, very happy.

Read the full interview at AccessHollywood.com