More than a decade after one of television's most debated scenes, Lena Headey remains surprised by the backlash she received for using a body double in "Game of Thrones." The actress, who portrayed Cersei Lannister, stated that the outrage, particularly the notion that she had "duped the audience," was baffling.
Headey explained that the sheer scale of filming the "Walk of Atonement" scene, which involved thousands of extras, would have made it impossible for her to deliver the required emotional performance if she had also been preoccupied with nudity. "I wouldn’t have been able to do the emotional part of the job. I’d have been in full-on defensive mode," she told The Telegraph.
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The actress noted that at the time of filming, she had sufficient experience to set boundaries, a confidence she believes may not be shared by younger actresses entering the industry. "By that point, I’d been through the wringer. I could stand up for myself," she said. "Whereas I was of an age where I’d just tit about and diffuse anything uncomfortable with idiocy."
In a 2016 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Headey addressed viewers who felt she was "less of an actress" for not performing the nudity herself. "I've done nudity. I'm not averse to it," she stated then. "But I know I'm a very emotional actor and I get really driven by that. In order to do my job, I allow myself to be really vulnerable. I don't know any other way to do my job. Things really affect me. And the thought of being naked for three days and trying to contain her in the way she would be I think I would feel very angry. I didn't want to be angry. I don't think Cersei would be angry. I did what I thought she would do, emotionally."
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Headey also praised her body double, Rebecca Van Cleave, for undertaking the demanding role. The actress acknowledged that appearing nude on camera is not easy, and as a mother and public figure, performing the nude portions herself felt like more than she was willing to take on. She clarified that her performance was not phoned in, as she was present on set for the three days of filming the scene with Van Cleave.
Reflecting on her early career, Headey suggested that many young female actors faced a "rite of passage" that often involved intimate scenes. She admitted that in her early days, she rarely questioned such expectations, grateful simply to have work. "But I just got on with it," she said. "I didn’t go to drama school, so I would just arrive on a set and be, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got a job.’ And when it came to those moments, I don’t think I even questioned that I should be safe. Instead, I’d go home and cry, or think, ‘Oh, that felt weird and too familiar.’ Now I look back and feel, ‘Hmm, that was rough.’"
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These experiences, she stated, shaped her views on power dynamics within the entertainment industry. "The weird protection that we offer predatory men in the business because of the disproportionate power they wield, set against the need among vulnerable actresses to work to put food on the table to get the job – it makes me very angry," Headey remarked. She believes the #MeToo movement illuminated the prevalence of such experiences and that younger actresses today are more empowered to decline uncomfortable situations. "The attitude today is, ‘I’m not f---ing doing that,’" she emphasized.