CAUTION: If you want to spoil yourself, do not read this article. We are talking SPOILERS. Big ones.
Tonight, Game of Thrones killed off Cersei Lannister. Actor Lena Headey talked to James Hibberd of Entertainment Weekly all about it.
“I love the juicy dark emotional moments,” she said. Being buried under debris in the arms of your twin brother definitely qualifies as that.
“[U]ntil the very, very last minute [Cersei] is, as ever, in denial of what’s actually happening,” Headey said. Then, when Cersei is at her lowest, her twin brother is at her side. At first, Headey was “mixed” about the final scene (“I wanted her to have some big piece or fight with somebody”), but talking to Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime) helped her appreciate it. “They came into the world together and now they leave together.”
I think the important thing is that Jaime had a chance at freedom [with Brienne] and finally liberated himself from Cersei, which I think the audience will be thrilled about. I think the biggest surprise is he came back for her. Cersei realizes just how she loves him and just how much he loves her. It’s the most authentic connection she’s ever had…It’s maybe the first time that Cersei has been at peace.
Apparently filming the final scene was as emotional as it looked, thanks to in no small part to Coster-Waldau being very “sentimental.”
And he’s all, ‘What’s happening to me?’ We kept cuddling going ‘I love you.’ It was weird. There’s a sense of loss that nothing like this will ever happen again. There was a great sense of grief and an enormous amount of gratitude going on.
But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. A lot of her final days involved ascending and descending that staircase “20,000 times.”
And how are fans reacting?
Cersei Lannister, signing off.
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