Lena Headey Admits Ending ‘Game of Thrones’ Made Career ‘Harder’: ‘What Do I Do Now?’
Lena Headey is giving insight into her state of mind once “Game of Thrones” concluded.
The actress, who played Cersei Lannister across eight seasons of the Emmy-winning HBO series, told People magazine that she was bracing for her career to feel “harder” after the show concluded in May 2019.
“‘Thrones’ was such a surprise,” Headey said. “But there was no part of me that went, ‘Oh, it’s done now. Life’s going to be easy.’ It opened doors, it made certain things easier. It also made things feel harder because you think, ‘What do I do?'”
Headey added that she tries to keep her “Game of Thrones” fame separate from her personal life, saying, “If someone says, ‘Oh, you’re in “Game of Thrones,”‘ my youngest [child] now says things like, ‘What is “Game of Thrones”?’ In fact, the other day she went, ‘My mommy is in…’ And I was like, ‘You don’t tell people!'”
Headey currently stars in HBO limited series “White House Plumbers” set during the Nixon administration.
“I didn’t know anything about it — big fat zero,” she said of the historical ties to the Watergate scandal. “I still don’t, if you were to quiz me. What I do know is that to get to create this duo with Woody [Harrelson], this sort of portrait of a shittyy marriage, was fun.”
The “Game of Thrones” alum is also directing her first feature, “Violet.”
Multiple “GoT” spinoffs are in the works, in addition to Season 2 of the prequel series “House of the Dragon.” Kit Harington confirmed a Jon Snow spinoff simply titled “Snow,” and creator George R.R. Martin revealed that production on “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight” has paused amid the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike. “The Hedge Knight” was first pitched to HBO in Summer 2016. The show will follow Knight Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire Egg and is based on Martin’s novellas from 1998.
“We are developing a number of other spinoffs,” Martin said in 2022. “There’s the Jon Snow sequel show, and the rest are all prequels. There’s ‘Ten Thousand Ships’ about Nymeria — that’s like a thousand years before and about how the Rhoynar came to Dorne. That’s an ‘Odyssey’-like epic. There’s the nine voyages of Corlys Velaryon, the Sea Snake. That would take us to places in the world that we’ve never seen.”
He continued, “We have some animated shows going, one of which was set in Yi Ti, which is basically the fantasy version of Imperial China or the Far East. We got a terrific script on that. Obviously, not all these shows we’re developing are going to make it to air, but I hope that several of them do.”