Bizarre story behind Sophie Turner's original Game of Thrones audition

The role that changed Sophie Turner's life only came about after she decided to audition as a joke with her school friends. Photo / Getty Images

Sophie Turner became a Hollywood A-lister — and a millionaire — playing Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones.

But the role that changed her life only came about after she decided to audition as a joke with her school friends.

In a video for Vogue Paris, Turner, 23, admitted she didn't even tell her parents she'd tried out for the lead role in the HBO series.

In a filmed conversation with actress Jessica Chastain, Turner explained the casting director had visited different schools and invited students to audition — so the young teenager and her friends did it as a "fun, kind of jokey thing to do".

Turner only told her parents she had auditioned for Game of Thrones once she was one of the final seven people being considered to play the role of Sansa Stark. Photo / Getty Images

That "joke" soon turned serious as Turner was invited to callback after callback, eventually becoming one of just seven contenders to play the eldest Stark daughter.

It was at that point she finally had to share the news with her parents.

"My parents found out when I was in the final seven, and then my mum kind of freaked out, and she called my dad and said, 'I don't know if we can do this'," Turner explained.

"But my dad said, 'Shut up, this is what she has wanted her whole life. You have to let her give it a go'."

The young actress was only 13 when Game of Thrones premiered, and as we know, it quickly went on to become one of the biggest TV shows of all time.

It skyrocketed Turner to fame and made her millions of dollars, plus helped her land a lead role in the X-Men franchise and provided an opportunity for her to meet her now-husband, pop star Joe Jonas.

Not bad for a "joke".