Lena Headey had a better idea for Cersei’s ending on Game of Thrones, and we’d watch *that* scene a million times
Warning: Major spoilers ahead for the Game of Thrones finale.
It was a gut punch for most Game of Thrones fans to see Cersei Lannister killed by King’s Landing rubble while in the arms of her true love and twin brother, Jamie Lannister. As the cruel, ruthless leader we’ve come to know deeply over eight seasons, Cersei didn’t deserve the “happy ending” she got. And actress Lena Headey, who played Cersei in the HBO series, agrees.
“I will say I wanted a better death,” Headey told The Guardian in a June 16th interview. Same, honestly.
“Obviously you dream of your death,” she said, having seen the multitude of torturous ways her co-stars had been killed off in seasons past. “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.”
Headey confirmed that she’s “got a few of [her] own gripes,” but hasn’t “sat down drunkenly” with the show’s creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss yet, who adapted George R. R. Martin’s unfinished epic for HBO. We would love to be a fly on the wall for when that happens.
Like many other Thrones fans, Headey was hoping for a final face-off between Cersei and Arya Stark, who had Cersei Lannister on her kill list for several seasons. Imagine Cersei trying to defend herself against a now-seasoned murderess Arya. It would have been horribly wonderful.
“I lived that fantasy until I read the script,” Headey told Entertainment Weekly at the end of May. “There were chunky scenes and it was nothing that I had dreamt about. It was a bit of come down and you have to accept that it wasn’t to be. There is something poetic about the way it all happens in the end with her and Jaime.”
Ugh. We guess.
Maisie Williams, who played Arya Stark, dreamt of the same final scene for Cersei (and possibly Arya). “I just wanted to be on set with Lena again, she’s good fun,” Williams told EW. “And I wanted Arya to kill Cersei even if it means [Arya] dies too.”
"Even up to the point when Cersei’s with Jaime I thought [while reading the script], 'He’s going to whip off his face [and reveal its Arya]' and they’re both going to die," she said. That would have been priceless. "I thought that’s what Arya’s drive has been."
And yet, here we are—all a bit disappointed. We hope Headey tells the creators what she really thought of Cersei’s demise, and we hope cameras are rolling when the discussion goes down.
