Even Lena Headey Didn't Love Cersei's Ending on 'Game of Thrones'
It turns out even Lena Headey wasn’t thrilled with how the Game of Thrones showrunners wrapped Cersei Lannister’s storyline in the final season of Game of Thrones. For the past eight seasons, we wondered if Cersei would meet her end on the show—but what ultimately happened wasn’t quite what viewers thought would transpire for the once-powerful queen. (After all, the show has dispatched characters major and minor in pretty much every way imaginable.) As viewers know, Cersei dies in her lover/brother Jamie’s arms as King’s Landing crumbles on top of them, which some argue wasn’t befitting of her character. As it turns out, they’re not alone: Headey always wanted Cersei to have a more epic death, too.
“I invested as a viewer, and I have my favorite characters. And I’ve got a few of my own gripes. But I haven’t sat down drunkenly with [showrunners] David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] yet,” she told The Guardian in an interview published Sunday (July 16). (Those two are the showrunners who adapted Game of Thrones from the books.)
As far as what she’ll say in her tipsy critique, Headey told the Guardian that she already has it planned: “I will say I wanted a better death,” Headey said. “Obviously you dream of your death. You could go in any way on that show. So I was kind of gutted. But I just think they couldn’t have pleased everyone. No matter what they did, I think there was going to be some big comedown from the climb.”
This isn’t the first time Headey has voiced her dissatisfaction with Cersei’s death. Last month, following the series finale, she told Entertainment Weekly, she wanted her character to “have some big piece or fight with somebody.”
Even if Cersei didn’t get the ending she quite deserved, Headey is already considering her next role: The Guardian reports that the massive success of the show—and the acclaim her acting received—has been a huge boost to her career, and that she’s now being “sent scripts in which she is actively interested.” Hopefully, that means we won’t have to wait too long until we see Headey and her talent back in action.