Lena Headey talks playing Cersei, backlash, and season 7

Game of Thrones fans the world over will soon get to see Lena Headey back in action as Queen Cersei Lannister, but before that, actor Lena Headey is getting the word out in a profile in The New York Times.

Of course, she’s not spoiling anything. “Are you [expletive] serious right now?” she said when journalist Jeremy Enger asked her what happens in season 7. “Um, she’s not having a good time — there you go. Apparently winter is really coming, finally.” It was worth a try, Enger.

Headey does offer some intriguing insight into Cersei’s personality, though. “Power hungry people are fearful, otherwise why wouldn’t you just chill?” And Cersei certainly has little in the way of chill.

Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss, talking to the Times through email, imply that this sort of thinking is what made Headey stand out during auditions. They say that she stayed away “the Evil Ice Queen stereotype,” and got to the root of what makes the character tick.

"Lena was the only one who conveyed the discomfort that comes with being Cersei — the sense of perpetual scrutiny and besiegement that comes with her position in the world, a position she never chose."

Pretty much all of Headey’s costars agree that she’s terrific in the role, with Conleth Hill (Varys) saying that “[s]he can do more with a look than most of us can with a couple pages of dialogue.” And it was actually Peter Dinklage, with whom Headey worked on a 2010 indie movie Pete Smalls is Dead. “I thought she would be a good fit for Cersei because anyone as funny as Lena is can also plumb the darkest depths,” Dinklage wrote in an email. “The two always go hand in hand.”

Headey also got into some of the more controversial moments she’s been involved in, such as the season 4 scene where Jaime rapes her near the dead body of their son Joffrey.“We love a good backlash,” she quipped, and wondered why that scene raised more ire than “a man up North taking his children to the White Walkers.”

As for Cersei being one of several prominent female characters to have survived from season 1 to now, Headey said that “having all of these females rise, in all their different guises — it’s sort of unheard-of, really.” Although the notoriety that comes with the role can lead to some awkward situations, as when a nurse was helping Headey feed her newborn baby and started chanting “shame” while she was “milking me like a human cow.”

"I was flying on morphine, so it was sort of funny. Had I been vaguely in the world, I might have been more offended."

When not filming Game of Thrones, Headey is raising her family with her fiancé, filmmaker Dan Cadan, in Yorkshire. It wasn’t that long ago that Headey was going through “some tough years” during a divorce. One silver lining: she tried to take those difficulties and put them “into Cersei in a way that was cathartic for me, otherwise I’d have had a meltdown.”

So in the end, was the Times able to get anything out of Headey regarding what happens on the show? Who, for example, sits the Iron Throne at the end of it all? “It can’t be me because I’m already there,” she said. “So I’m [expletive].” We’ll take it.

Next: Season 8 filming: Game of Thrones scouts Urueña Castle

Also, just so you know, people on the Game of Thrones set refer to Headey’s blonde bob Cersei wig as “the Turnip.” You’re welcome.

SPOILER post-script

Careful as she was to avoid spoilers, careful readers may have noticed something eyebrow-raising in Headey’s interview. Read on for minor SPOILERS.

Towards the end of the article, Egner writes that Headey is currently taking it easy “until filming starts this fall on the final season of “Game of Thrones.”” Why is that significant? Because it reveals that Cersei will live through season 7.

Now, that’s not a huge spoiler. “Character doesn’t die.” But I think a lot of fans were wondering if the unstable Cersei, who’s currently ruling over a very rickety kingdom, would be gone by the end of the season. Apparently not. Long live the queen and so forth.