'Game of Thrones' actress Sophie Turner says she gets roles based on her social media following

(Reuters)

How much does one’s social media following affect their ability to become a star? According to “Game of Thrones” actress Sophie Turner, a lot.

The actress spoke to Porter magazine and revealed some pretty interesting things about Hollywood and what’s important and what’s not.

“I auditioned for a project and it was between me and another girl who is a far better actress than I am, far better, but I had the followers, so I got the job," she told the magazine, via The Telegraph. "It’s not right, but it is part of the movie industry now.”

Turner got her big break when she was cast in HBO’s immense hit “Game of Thrones” in 2011. Since then, her following on social has climbed high with roughly 1.34 million followers on Twitter, 5.4 million on Instagram and 2 million on Facebook. Likely in an effort to stay professional, Turner stopped short of naming the actress or the project in question. It could be her big role as Jean Grey in “X-Men: Apocalypse” or a myriad of other post-”Thrones” projects such as “Huntsville or “Berlin, I love You.”

It seems that the high social following and ability to generate buzz around a project are a big deal for movie stars right now. As Vanity Fair notes, stars like Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel have such large followings and are so active with their fans that studios allow them to drop trailers and teasers directly to their followers on Facebook.