Hannah Murray (born 1 July 1989) is an English actress best known for portraying Cassie Ainsworth in the E4 teen drama series Skins (2007–2008; 2013), for which she was the recipient of a BAFTA Audience Award and Gilly in the HBO series Game of Thrones (2012–present), for which she has been nominated for two Screen Actors Guild Awards. She has received praise for her performances in the Off West End play Martine (2014) and the film Bridgend.
Murray was born and raised in Bristol. Her parents work at Bristol University, her father as a professor and her mother as a research technician. She earned an English degree at Queens' College, Cambridge. She attended North Bristol Post 16 Centre, and was a member of the Bristol Old Vic Young Company.
At the age of 16, Murray heard about an audition for young actors in Bristol, and decided to audition for the experience. The auditions were for the E4 teen drama series Skins. She impressed the producers of the series and was cast as Cassie Ainsworth, a gentle and creative but self-destructive teenager with an eating disorder. Murray and April Pearson were the first two to get cast for the show. Murray went on to appear in the first two series, from 2007 to 2008. She left at the end of the show's second series to make way for a new generation of characters. On the decision to replace the cast, Murray has said that "it would be really silly to be in a teenage drama if you're no longer a teenager".