Tragic Details About Game Of Thrones Star Lena Headey

This article contains discussions of mental health and sexual assault.

When it comes to villains on "Game of Thrones," few are as powerful or as impactful as Cersei Lannister, played by the inimitable Lena Headey. "Game of Thrones," adapted from George R.R. Martin's novel series "A Song of Ice and Fire," was a massive hit on HBO thanks to its stunning world-building and unforgettable characters, Cersei chief among them. A member of the powerful Lannister family — daughter to Tywin (Charles Dance) and sister to Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) and her beloved twin Jaime (Nikolaj-Coster Waldau) — Cersei is formidable, deeply evil, and compulsively fun to watch as she schemes and plots to take the Iron Throne of Westeros for herself. So what about the woman who played her?

Headey, a veteran actress who's also appeared in major projects like "300" (as Gorgo, Queen of Sparta), the first movie in "The Purge" franchise, and "Ripley's Game," is the perfect choice to play Martin's richly drawn character Cersei, a woman whose thirst for vengeance tends to override some of her other motivations and emotions. But did Headey have an easy time playing Cersei on "Game of Thrones" for a full decade of filming while the show aired from 2011 to 2019? Well, that's complicated ... so let's get into it. Here are some tragic details about difficult times and experiences Lena Headey endured while she played the iconic character of Cersei Lannister on "Game of Thrones." 

Cersei's identity as a mother is a huge part of her character — even though, as a young girl, she's offered a prophecy that tells her she'll have three royal children who will end up in "golden shrouds," indicating that they'll die young. (This does, in fact, happen ... but with all due respect to Cersei, watching her awful son Joffrey, who's played by Jack Gleeson, die is one of the show's highlights.) As Lena Headey — who has a son and a daughter — told her co-star Maisie Williams in an interview with Net-a-Porter's The Edit (via People Magazine), she struggled with post-partum depression while making "Game of Thrones," which made something that could already feel tough that much harder.

Headey's first son was born in 2010, which is right around when "Game of Thrones" started filming ... and Headey told Williams, who plays Arya Stark on the series, that she was going through a rough time in real life during Cersei's first outing on the series. "Really horrendous – I was postnatally depressed, but I didn't know it," Headey said, describing how hard it was for her to film some of the deeply emotional scenes in Season 1 of the fantasy series. "I saw a doctor for the medical check, and I just burst into tears. She said I was postnatally depressed and I went, 'Am I? Why is that?'"

Thankfully, Headey was able to get help. "I saw a great guy and he sorted me out, but I did the first year [on 'Game of Thrones'] in that space, figuring out motherhood and going through a weird time personally," she admitted. "It was tricky."

After "Game of Thrones" ended in 2019, its acclaimed actors were booked and busy, including Lena Headey. Unfortunately, though, one project didn't pan out ... and that project just so happened to be a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

Apparently, Headey — alongside Oscar winner Da'Vine Joy Randolph and "Insidious" veteran Angus Sampson — was supposed to play one of three "witches" in Taika Waititi's much-maligned follow-up to 2017's "Thor: Ragnarok," "Thor: Love and Thunder." That sequel released in 2022, and Headey is not in it.

"I wasn't in it, but I worked on it. There were three of us. We were [a] coven of witches," Headey shared with ScreenRant in 2026. She went on:

"I think it was Taika's invention, and they were kind of Thor's guide in the underworld, but they were very, very funny and kind of insane. I think there was this whole story of like, 'They got fired,' when actually it was just like, 'What are they doing here?' But I think the intention was to find this land for them to have their own adventures. It was myself, Angus Sampson, and Da'Vine Joy, so it was quite a trio of madness."

Headey also made sure to go out of her way to praise Randolph, who won her Academy Award for "The Holdovers" and also regularly appears in "Only Murders in the Building." Of Randolph, Headey said, "Oh, she's a delight. She is a joy. She is a divine joy. So yeah, bummer that we didn't make the cut." Based on the movie's reception, Headey, Sampson, and Randolph actually got lucky.

In 2017, Hollywood megaproducer Harvey Weinstein was held accountable for years of sexual impropriety, abuse, and assault — horrible abuses he was able to commit against women in Hollywood simply because he was so powerful. Shortly after a bombshell report in the New York Times detailed a pattern of genuinely reprehensible behavior over a series of years, Lena Headey became one of many brave actresses who admitted that she, too, had a bad personal experience with Weinstein.

In a series of now-deleted social media posts (via the BBC), Headey said that Weinstein sexually harassed her when he asked her to go to his hotel room in 2015 to read a script for a project. (Inviting actresses to various hotel suites was an enormous part of Weinstein's modus operandi). As they got into the elevator, Headey says she spoke up. "The lift was going up and I said to Harvey, 'I'm not interested in anything other than work, please don't think I got in here with you for any other reason, nothing is going to happen,'" she wrote on X (then known as Twitter).

"I don't know what possessed me to speak out at that moment, only that I had such a strong sense of don't come near me," she continued. "He was silent after I spoke, furious. He walked me back to the lift by grabbing and holding tightly to the back of my arm," Headey recalled, saying she remembered feeling "completely powerless." Headey says that Weinstein then "whispered" to her and told her she shouldn't tell anybody what just happened; Headey then said, "I got into my car and cried." Weinstein is one of history's most infamous predators, and it's deeply scary that Headey experienced that.

When it comes to Cersei Lannister's most memorable moments on "Game of Thrones," her Walk of Shame after her arrest by Jonathan Pryce's religious leader the High Sparrow is at the top of the list. After Cersei admits to a series of crimes at the end of Season 5, the High Sparrow and his acolytes force her to walk through King's Landing naked with her long blonde hair shorn as people scream at her and throw rotten food (and ... human feces). It's a horrifying scene, and it gives Cersei a brand new yearning for revenge against the High Sparrow and all of his allies.

Headey did decide that she did not want to personally appear naked for this scene, according to James Hibberd's "Game of Thrones" oral history "Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon" — and actress Rebecca van Cleave was brought in as a stand-in. It still wasn't easy.

"It's not hard [to act] when people are screaming at you and you look like sh** and you're being f**king humiliated [to express] how that would feel," Headey said, revealing that this all felt a little too real. "I did what I thought she would do emotionally. And wonderful Rebecca was able to contain herself and be naked. She found it very difficult, obviously."

Showrunner David Benioff confirmed that this was tough for Headey. "Some of those shots we got, some of those close-ups, Lena had to go to a dark place to get the right emotion," he said. "It's incredibly compelling, yet you almost want to turn away because you're looking at someone who's suffering." The finished scene is incredible ... and it's not surprising that it was hard to shoot.

To say the ending of "Game of Thrones" was unpopular is a massive understatement, considering that fans literally started a petition asking HBO to redo it. Apparently, Lena Headey sort of agrees. In a postmortem interview in The Guardian in June 2019, Headey admitted that Cersei's death — which happens alongside Jaime as the Red Keep in King's Landing crumbles above them — wasn't her favorite. Or, as she put it, "I will say I wanted a better death."

Headey is, frankly, right; it felt ridiculously anticlimactic to watch her crushed to death by falling rocks without even sparring with her enemy Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke). Headey, for her part, said she was just bummed as an actress ... especially one on "Game of Thrones," a show that became famous for over-the-top and elaborate deaths.

"Obviously you dream of your death," Headey said, speaking as an actor who knows their character will meet a bitter end. "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." Honestly? A lot of fans agree with her. You can stream "Game of Thrones" on HBO Max now.

If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).