Lena Headey On ‘Game Of Thrones’ Ending: ‘I Wanted A Better Death’ For Cersei

“Game of Thrones” star Lena Headey said she hasn’t debriefed with the series’ creators since the HBO hit ended last month. But when she does, she has a clear message for showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss.

“I will say I wanted a better death,” the star said in an interview with The Guardian published Sunday. 

“You could go in any way on that show,” she added. “So I was kind of gutted.”

Headey’s Cersei Lannister, the show’s ultimate villain whose vileness grew deeper with each season, experienced a lackluster death in the series’ penultimate episode. For Cersei, who ordered the beheading, murder and torture of so many characters, to die quietly in the arms of her incestuous lover as her palace crumbled above her head was, to say the least, disappointing for viewers who anticipated the queen would experience a karmic-like demise in the end. 

The star previously said she had “mixed” feelings about Cersei’s death, suggesting she had hoped for a better ending but ultimately grew to accept her character’s final moments as the “perfect” conclusion. 

“I wanted her to have some big piece or fight with somebody,” Headey told Entertainment Weekly in May. She said she changed her mind after discussing the scene with co-star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who plays Cersei’s twin brother and lover, Jaime.

“The more we talked about it the more it seemed like the perfect end for her,” Headey said. “They came into the world together and now they leave together.”

But it seems Headey would have still preferred a better ending for the character she played for nearly a decade, though she admitted the demands on Weiss and Benioff were tremendous. 

“I just think they couldn’t have pleased everyone,” she told The Guardian. “No matter what they did, I think there was going to be some big comedown from the climb.”

Regardless, Headey’s role on the series was one she said she’s forever grateful for in an interview with HuffPost published earlier this year. 

“Nobody wants to play a character who’s really fucking dull and has no history,” she said.