LENA HEADEY — CERSEI LANNISTER FROM GAME OF THRONES

LENA HEADEY — CERSEI LANNISTER FROM GAME OF THRONES

1. Lena Kathren Headey was born on 3 October 1973. She is an English actress.
2. Headey was born in Hamilton, Bermuda, to English parents, Sue and John Headey. Her father, a Yorkshire police officer, was stationed there at the time in the Bermuda Police Service.
3. She has one younger brother, Tim. She is of part Irish descent. When she was five, her family returned to England, initially settling in Somerset before moving again to Highburton, near Huddersfield, West Yorkshire when she was 11. She took ballet lessons as a child.
4. Headey had her first experience of acting when she was a pupil at Shelley College; she was noticed at age 17, when performing in a school production at the Royal National Theatre, and was picked for a role in the 1992 film Waterland.
5. She is best known for her acclaimed portrayal of Cersei Lannister on the HBO fantasy drama series Game of Thrones (2011–2019), for which she has received five Primetime Emmy Award nominations and a Golden Globe Award nomination.
6. Headey made her film debut in the mystery drama Waterland (1992). She continued to work steadily in British and American films and on television, before gaining further recognition with her lead performances in the films The Brothers Grimm (2005) and 300 (2007). Her other film credits include The Remains of the Day (1993), The Jungle Book (1994), Mrs. Dalloway (1997), Ripley’s Game (2002), Imagine Me & You (2005), Dredd (2012), The Purge (2013), 300: Rise of an Empire (2014), Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016), and Fighting with My Family (2019).
7. Outside of film, Headey starred as Sarah Connor in the science fiction television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008–2009). She provided voices for the role-playing video game Risen (2009) and the video game tie-in film Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV (2016), as well as the animated series Danger Mouse (2015–2017) and Trollhunters (2017–2018), and puppet-animated series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (2019).
8. At the age of 17, Headey performed in a one-off show and afterward, a casting agent took a photo and asked her to audition. She eventually obtained a supporting role in the drama Waterland (1992), in which she had the opportunity to work with actors who had been in the business several years before her.
9. She also had a small role in the critically acclaimed 1993 drama film The Remains of the Day, which received eight Academy Awards nominations. Her career would continue to grow in England throughout the decade, and see larger parts in bigger motion pictures. In 1997, she appeared in the drama series Kavanagh QC, playing the role of Natasha Jackson.
10. Headey played Kitty Brydon, the childhood friend, and romantic interest of Mowgli, in Disney’s The Jungle Book (1994). James Berardinelli praised the cast’s “solid performances” as part of positive critical reception, and the film found moderate commercial success in theaters.
11. She appeared opposite Vanessa Redgrave in the 1997 romantic drama Mrs. Dalloway, portraying the closest friend of a housewife, who is now the wife of a self-made millionaire and mother of five. She was then cast in the drama Onegin (1999), a film based on the 19th-century Russian novel Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin, in which she portrayed the fiancée of an aspiring poet and appeared with Ralph Fiennes and Liv Tyler. The film was critically and financially unsuccessful.
12. In 2000, Headey played a newly promoted lawyer with no apparent emotional attachments in the romantic comedy Aberdeen, receiving the Silver Iris Award for Best Actress at the 2001 Brussels European Film Festival, and also starred as a troubled college student in the psychological drama Gossip, with Kate Hudson.
13. In 2002, she appeared as a mousey Victorian lesbian artist with Gwyneth Paltrow and Aaron Eckhart in the mystery drama Possession, based on the 1990 novel of the same name by British author A. S. Byatt, and as the wife of a law-abiding art framer dying of leukemia in the thriller Ripley’s Game, adapted from the 1974 novel of the same name.
14. Headey found much wider recognition when she starred with Matt Damon and Heath Ledger in Terry Gilliam’s adventure fantasy film The Brothers Grimm (2005).
15. In 2009, Headey played an ill-fated character in the slasher film Laid to Rest, which received a DVD release, had a part in a short film titled The Devil’s Wedding, and also provided her voice for an episode of the Cartoon Network series The Super Hero Squad Show,[46] playing Black Widow and Mystique. She briefly appeared in the independent comedy Pete Smalls Is Dead (2010).
16. Beginning in April 2011, Headey portrayed queen regent Cersei Lannister on the HBO series Game of Thrones, based on George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series of novels. She was cast in the role after her friend and eventual co-star, Peter Dinklage, suggested her casting to producers. Her performance as the ruthless queen has received critical acclaim, earning a Scream Award nomination for Best Fantasy Actress for the role in 2011and Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2018.
17. Following the success of 300 (2007), Headey reprised her role as Queen Gorgo in 300: Rise of an Empire, which was released in 2014. Like the first film, Rise of an Empire received mixed reviews, but was a major commercial success, grossing over US$337 million worldwide.[63] In 2014, she also starred in the fantasy adventure film The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box and the biographical film Low Down, which detailed the life of jazz pianist Joe Albany.
18. In 2015, she played the wife of a federal prosecutor running for office who cannot stop himself from sleeping with high-class escorts in the political thriller Zipper, opposite Patrick Wilson.
19. In the historical action comedy Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Headey appeared as Lady Catherine de Bourgh, with her former Game of Thrones, Century, and The Contractor co-star Charles Dance. Andrew Barker, of Variety, found her to be “excessively diverting” in what he considered a “tolerable, but not handsome enough” film.
20. In 2017, Headey appeared as a “predictably hard-boiled boss” in the crime thriller Thumper, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, and provided the voiceover for Mercedes A-Class television advertisement and Morgana in Trollhunter.
21. Headey has a number of tattoos. Her tattoos include a large floral design on her back as well as a Pema Chödrön quote on her ribs.
22. Headey married musician Peter Loughran in May 2007; their son, Wylie Loughran, was born on 31 March 2010. She has spoken about suffering from postnatal depression following Wylie’s birth. Headey and Loughran separated in 2011, and she filed for divorce in the Los Angeles County Superior Court on 20 July 2012. The divorce was finalized on 26 December 2013.
23. On 10 July 2015, Headey gave birth to her second child, a daughter named Teddy, with director Dan Cadan (her childhood friend, who also worked with Headey on his short film The Devil’s Wedding). They had separated by June 2019.
24. Headey supports the LGBT rights organization NOH8, in April 2015 appeared on a T-shirt designed by them and sold through Represent.com to raise funds for the cause. She has been involved with the humanitarian organization the International Rescue Committee (IRC), advocating for migrants languishing in Greece during the European migrant crisis, saying that in the face of rising populism, and the “lost humanity in leadership”, people should continue to “fight for the good”.
25. In 2018, Headey did a voice-over for an advertisement by the charity Alzheimer’s Research UK, which launched ahead of World Alzheimer’s Day.