When you think about what's so far befallen the three middle Stark children on HBO's Game of Thrones — exile, defenestration, beatings, paralysis, imprisonment, and bearing witness to their father's beheading — it might be foolish to ride in an elevator with them. Nevertheless, I did exactly that recently, and because Isaac Hempstead Wright (Bran), Sophie Turner (Sansa), and Maisie Williams (Arya) are not actually Starks, we all survived.

Turner is 17, Wright will turn 14 next month, and Williams is soon to be 16. Before open casting calls for Game of Thrones came along, they were normal school kids with an interest in acting. Now, with Game of Thrones beginning its third season on Sunday at 9 p.m., they are part of an international hit that both true nerds and lay-nerds obsess over.

The Season 3 premiere will find their fictional selves in jeopardy. Bran, a paraplegic, is heading toward what he hopes is the safety of the Wall and his half-brother, Jon Snow; Sansa is still a captive of the Lannisters in King's Landing; and Arya has escaped Harrenhal to go in search of her mother. It's not going to be easy for any of them.

In real life, the actors have become close friends. If the curse that besets the Stark family in the books and on the show is that they can never quite get to each other, the idea of Turner, Wright, and Williams as a clique is like the sweetest fan fiction Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin — who treats his characters with a fair amount of brutality — would never write.

Here's their first interview together.

None of you had ever been on camera before, and you were in regular schools. What was the audition process like?

Isaac Hempstead Wright: I went up with a couple of friends from the drama group. We didn't really know what we were doing. It was fun.

Sophie Turner: They came to my school. They originally weren't going to go that far north because they didn't want an accent. I mean, I don't have an accent. But they didn't want to go to Birmingham, or anything.

Maisie Williams: I did my second audition with Sophie and some other girls who were auditioning for Sansa. And got on really well with Sophie, and was kind of like, even if I didn't get the part — I just thought she was really fun and really nice.

Sophie: Oh, stop it. Stop it.

Maisie: It was really good fun! And it was nice to act with other people, and have someone reading the scene who was going up for the part instead of just someone behind the camera or your mum.

And then you get the parts. And then it takes forever for the show to actually be on TV.

Sophie: Yeah, from the pilot to Season 1 coming out on television was painstaking.

Maisie: We'd have little meet-ups at Christmas.

Isaac: I remember that!

Maisie: We'd give everyone gifts. And birthdays. It was like a whole new little set of friends. It was really cool.

How do you keep up your friendships with each other now, when you're not necessarily in the same place?

Maisie: I filmed in Belfast for a lot of it, and so did Isaac, but we didn't cross over as much as would have been nice.

Sophie: My stuff was in Croatia.

Isaac: We also meet up when we're not filming too.

The three of you?

Maisie: Yeah, and the parents as well. You are two really, really good friends. And we've kind of done all of this growing up together in this weird world. It's nice to sort of have people to relate to, and you can go back together and say, "Oh, god, today I had this embarrassing thing" or "I'm worried about this scene." We've known each other since we started. It's a close relationship.

Sophie: We've gone through this kind of crazy thing where we didn't know what we were doing together, and we have this kind of bond that I feel like I don't have with my friends from home.

How is it with your friends from home?

Isaac: It's exactly the same.

Maisie: There've been a few people that weren't nice. But your real friends — none of us have had any serious troubles. We've all stayed really close with our friends. I think that's important as well, to go back home and see all of them. I tell them all about you two and they want to meet you. They watch you on television and they think it's kind of strange how I know you guys.

Do your friends from home watch the show?

Isaac: Most of my friends aren't allowed. But some of them quite naughtily watch it.

Maisie: As I'm getting older, I meet more people my age watching it. When I first started, it was only adults. But a lot of my brother's uni friends and college friends watch it. It's a very wide audience that sees the show. It's cool.

Sophie: A lot of my friends do watch it. My friends are really hardcore fans, which is so weird. One of my friends was like, "Can you sign my book?" I was, like, "No, you're my friend!" To be honest, I'd prefer if my friends didn't watch it, because I hate the fact that they see me as anything different than their friend. So that's why it really bugged me when she said, "Can you sign my book?"

Maisie: It's nice to just be Sophie or Maisie or Isaac. When that's kind of disrupted, it feels a bit strange. You kind of want to keep home as home and filming as filming. It's strange.