Lena Headey talks Cersei, prophecy, Tyrion & the Iron Throne (spoilers)

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Major SPOILERS for Sunday’s season finale of Game of Thrones.

Even though I hate (or love to hate?) Cersei, I find Lena Headey absolutely charming. You can just feel that Lena has so much fun playing Cersei on Game of Thrones, and unlike so many actors, Lena doesn’t care if her character is likeable in the least. I honestly thought we would be discussing Lena’s exit-interview following the finale – I thought for sure that Cersei would die at the end of Season 6. But she didn’t. She played her trump card and burned all of her enemies in one glorious wildfire bang. Then Cersei’s last surviving child, King Tommen, committed suicide rather than be a pawn in his mother’s throney shenanigans. So what was left? Nothing, except to take the Iron Throne by herself. Cersei’s support is a mile wide and an inch deep, and she will obviously not remain on the throne. Even Lena says as much. Here are some highlights from her EW interview, which is all about the finale:

On the prophecy: “Yes, the prophecy finally comes true. Which is horrible. Yet at the same time, she has her greatest moment of triumph. She gets rid of all her enemies, that she knows of anyway. Then there’s that moment where she goes to see dead Tommen and she thinks, “Ah. Well. I’ll [take the crown].” It’s so wrong.

Reading the finale script & realizing Cersei was taking out her enemies: “I was grinning.. Everyone is going to be aghast and thrilled and annoyed they’re on Cersei’s side for a minute.”

On Frankenclegane’s torture of Septa Unella: “It’s so filthy. It’s so great. Everybody’s witnessed what happened with the two of them. I don’t think people will be able to help going, “Yes!” But it’s so depraved, it’s brilliant. The scene was meant to be worse, but they couldn’t do it. This is like the tame version. It’s pretty bad still though. I’d take being exploded in the Sept over that any day.”

When she realized Cersei would sit on the throne: “I couldn’t believe it, obviously. I was really shocked. I read it like nine times, like, “You’re joking!” Then I’m left to wonder who’s going to take her down. She may only be there for a second. You do think, “What the f— comes next?” Then we start again to play that game we all play each season, “Who’s going to be on the Iron Throne next?”

Whether Cersei will have a long reign: “No. Surely not! Not a chance in hell. It’s a moment of punctuation in the madness.”

She hopes next season will have a Cersei-Tyrion reunion: “I’m as excited as anyone to get Cersei and Tyrion back together. It just works. Those two characters are so interesting because there’s so much hate, yet slight respect too. They’d kill each other if ever given the chance.”

Who should kill Cersei: “I think it has to be Arya or Tyrion…No one would relish her death as much as [Tyrion] would.”

[From EW]

While I love that Lena name-checked Arya as her would-be assassin – and Cersei is absolutely on Arya’s much-recited sh-t list – that would go against the prophecy, all of which has come true thus far. The prophecy was right that she would bury all of her children. And the prophecy is likely right when it predicts that she will die by Volonqar, which is Valyrian for “little brother.” Cersei is actually the “older twin,” so both Jamie and Tyrion are her little brothers. Who will kill Cersei? Tyrion or Jamie? Lena’s BFF is actually Peter Dinklage in real life, by the way. They adore each other and spent several years renting a house together during filming of the show. Lena tells EW that if Tyrion is the one who kills her, “Maybe we could have a dying kiss or something.” She just wants to get a snog off The Dinklage!

Also – poor Natalie Dormer also gave a short “exit interview” to People Magazine about how Margaery died because of the High Sparrow’s incompetence. Which is true.

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Photos courtesy of HBO, WENN.

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36 Responses to “Lena Headey talks Cersei, prophecy, Tyrion & the Iron Throne (spoilers)”

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  1. QQ says:

    Gahh I just Love her, and also Never have I liked Cersei more than I did last episode, It was the scenery chewing the Epaulets the Lions on her shoulders, The Delight of a Bad Bad Bad Woman on tv with zero apologies for her actions/for not being nice or motherly or good and being unabashed in that, We don’t see that enough on tv or movies

    • macy says:

      COSIGNED. how many times were there dumb men on the throne. she slayed.

    • Sara says:

      She just kicked ass! Ruthless! She’s much more likeable when she’s killing people instead of seducing everyone to do it for her.

  2. LannisterForever says:

    Cersei is my favorite character (yes, really) and she was played to absolute perfection by Lena in this episode. The wildfire and coronation scenes were creepy and cool at the same time and I was both crying and cheering all over the place!

    • LadyMTL says:

      While I find Cersei to be one of the most interesting characters, I can’t say she’s even close to my fave (Sansa is rapidly becoming my favorite, tbh. She’s come such a long way from S1).

      All of Cersei’s decisions have been dumb / bad ones, she often lets her emotions overrule her common sense, and she’s definitely got sadistic tendencies to top it all off. I mean, murdering hundreds of innocent people just to get revenge and neutralize her enemies? Yowza. Never mind that she handed over a nun to a known rapist. Now she can’t even use her tired excuse of “doing it to protect the children”.

      I honestly can’t wait until she gets hers because duh, her reign will not be a long one. In an ideal world I’d like to see Arya scratch another name off her list, but my gut says it’ll probably be Jaime who does the deed.

    • Pinky says:

      Oddly, she did what she had to do. Burned them all down. Sick!

      –TheRealPinky

  3. HappyMom says:

    I think there will be some kind of fight to the finish between she and Tyrion-but Jamie will save him, and not her-and then somehow die immediately himself.

  4. Darkladi says:

    New Life Goal: Drink a delicious red wearing bad-ass leather while watching the world burn.

  5. Mumzy says:

    Or Arya kills Jamie and then borrows his face to finally finish off Cersei!

  6. Soprana says:

    Will we see a lion on King’s Landing in the opening credits of season 7?

    Also is Cersei keeping her hair short as a massive “eff you” to the people who mocked her? The wig does look freshly trimmed and neat…

  7. paolanqar says:

    She was just beautiful in the last episode.

    My take is that she only really and truly loved Joffrey. Myrcella and Tommen were just two weak blonde figurines and with their deaths she didn’t suffer as much as she did when Tommen died.
    I think she is happy Tommen died because she is now full on in power withput having to scheme and plan too much.

    I couldn’t wait for Tommen to die. Such a weak character.

    • tracking says:

      Also, remember Tommen betrayed her. Had she gone to trial, all her secrets would have been exposed and she would have lost everything or been executed.

    • FingerBinger says:

      I think Cersei loved Myrcella. She didn’t want her sent away. She also mourned the girl when she died.

  8. shewolf says:

    I always liked Cersei. She’s done some heinous things but I always got the feeling that she was just like anyone else in Westeros. She was just trying to survive and trying to retain her title, wealth and inheritance. She tried to protect those things mostly for her children than her own self. If she weren’t as sharp witted and willing to do anything to protect her interests as she is, she’d have been steamrolled by people like Olenna, Robert, her father… pretty much everyone. The closer you are to the throne the more ruthless you have to be and the entire time we’ve known her, she’s hovered around the throne by being the daughter of the Hand, the Queen to Robert and the mother to three thronely heirs.

    As much as it was cheering for the wrong side, I stiffled a smirk when the Great Sept went up in flames and all her enemies were obliterated. The truth is, there wasn’t one person in that building that wasn’t trying to play the game of thrones just like her… they were just inferior at it.

    I have a little theory that Arya is going to kill Jamie and use his face to kill Cersei.

  9. Soprana says:

    Is it weird that I kind of like her henchman, Qyburn? Yah he’s majorly sketchy, but he’s not a pervert like Pycelle and seems to treat the little birds well. He also doesn’t experiment on serving girls in the shows like he does in the books (someone correct me if I’m wrong)

    • Kaiser says:

      I love Qyburn too! he’s creepy but awesome.

    • bread says:

      I love his voice! That slightly raspy quality to it…

    • Chaucer says:

      “. . . . Seems to treat the little birds well.”

      Lol. The candy he gives them? Laced with a high potency narcotic. (I don’t remember if this is canon or not, but this is the highly accepted theory.) He basically creates drug addicts out of children and keeps them drugged up to remain under control. So, sort of? Better than living on the street and starving I guess?

  10. Div says:

    I love to hate Cersei 🙂

    Also think Lena is a pretty great actress and I hope she gets a lot of work after GOT.

    • Betti says:

      Lena is a vastly underrated actress – its great that she works consistently but I would love to see her get better parts thou she does the evil character very well.

      Have always been a Lena fan.

  11. Soprana says:

    As I said yesterday, I’m shipping Euron and Cersei. The Hate-Sex would be off the charts!

  12. Jenns says:

    I never liked Cersei. But, the High Sparrow forced me to like Cersei. That’s what I like about GOT. She was a character that I loathed, but I found myself rooting for her to blow sh*t up in King’s Landing. It will be interesting to see what happens to Cersi now that all of her children are dead. I felt like they were the only thing keeping her somewhat in check.

    And while I understand why Tyrion killed his father, his actions set off some of the events that happened. Yes, Cersi put The Faith in a position of power, but that would’ve never had happened is Tywin were alive. So what will the reaction be when Tyrion comes back to King’s Landing?

  13. LA says:

    I’m getting the feeling that GRRM is like George Lucas. Good at the big ideas, but can be his own worst enemy. I think the show has gotten so much better now that they are free to do things mostly on their own without having to follow his insanely (and unecessarily) complicated universe.

    Ps RIP Marg. She was my favorite 🙁

  14. Lucy says:

    Lena seems so fun and approachable, and I love how she’s such a spunky rock chick irl, worlds apart from Cersei. Great interview! Although I do think it would be amazing if Arya killed her.
    EDIT: Just read Nat’s little interview, and she speaks the truth. It was all on the High Sparrow, which makes me feel even more sorry about her death.

  15. Molly says:

    Cersei is absolutely my favorite character and the only reason I watch the show. I think this actress is brilliant as a badass, in a kind of Joan Crawford sort of way.

  16. mary s says:

    “Take all that you hold dear”… Does she ” hold dear” anybody or anything besides Jaime? I think Jaime will side with Daenerys. Daenerys effectively takes him from Cersei because he turns his back on her.

    • Diana B says:

      I don’t think she values Jaimie that much. It’s all about power now and getting thrown out of the throne will be her last payment to that profecy and then, she dies.

  17. Melody says:

    Valonquar: Arya in a Tyrion/Jamie mask – probably Jamie since she trusts him more.

  18. Lilacflowers says:

    How will Cersei deal with uprisings in Flea Bottom when the food from Highgarden runs out? How will she pay The Bank of Bravos when Mark Gatis comes to collect on the loans?

    • Dee Kay says:

      I really hope Highgarden starves out King’s Landing. I really felt for Lady Olenna, who lost her entire family, including its beautiful heirs. I know that part of her revenge is in giving ships and troops to Danerys, but I hope another part of it is that she completely holds back all the grain and whatever other supplies the Tyrells have been supplying the capital with.