Lena Kathren Headey is a Bermudan-English actress.
41 Facts About Lena Headey
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Lena Headey gained international recognition and acclaim for her portrayal of Cersei Lannister on the HBO epic fantasy drama series Game of Thrones, for which she received five Primetime Emmy Award nominations and a Golden Globe Award nomination, and Queen Gorgo in 300.
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Lena Headey continued to work steadily in British and American films and on television, before gaining further recognition with her lead performances in the films The Brothers Grimm and 300.
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Outside of film, Lena Headey starred as Sarah Connor in the science fiction television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and had recurring roles as Big Mama in the animated series Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and as Amelia Hughes in the animated web series Infinity Train.
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Lena Headey provided voices for the role-playing video game Risen and the video game tie-in film Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV, as well as the animated series Danger Mouse and Tales of Arcadia, and the puppet series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.
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Lena Kathren Headey was born in Hamilton in the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda on 3 October 1973, the daughter of English parents Sue and John Headey.
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Lena Headey had her first experience of acting when she was a pupil at Shelley College; she was noticed at age 17, when performing in a school production at the Royal National Theatre, and was picked for a role in the 1992 film Waterland.
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At the age of 17, Lena Headey performed in a one-off show and afterwards a casting agent took a photo and asked her to audition.
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Lena Headey eventually obtained a supporting role in the drama Waterland, in which she had the opportunity to work with actors who had been in the business several years before her.
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Lena Headey had a small role in the critically acclaimed 1993 drama film The Remains of the Day, which received eight Academy Awards nominations.
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Lena Headey appeared in the hit TV show Soldier Soldier with Robson Green and Jerome Flynn.
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Lena Headey's career continued to grow in England throughout the decade, and she got larger parts in bigger motion pictures.
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Lena Headey played Kitty Brydon, the childhood friend and romantic interest of Mowgli, in Disney's The Jungle Book.
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Lena Headey appeared opposite Vanessa Redgrave in the 1997 romantic drama Mrs Dalloway, portraying the closest friend of a housewife, who is wife of a self-made millionnaire and mother of five.
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Lena Headey was then cast in the drama Onegin, a film based on the 19th-century Russian novel Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin, in which she portrayed the fiancee of an aspiring poet and appeared with Ralph Fiennes and Liv Tyler.
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In 2000, Lena Headey played a newly promoted lawyer with no apparent emotional attachments in the romantic comedy Aberdeen, receiving the Silver Iris Award for Best Actress at the 2001 Brussels European Film Festival, and starred as a troubled college student in the psychological drama Gossip, with Kate Hudson.
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In 2001's comedy The Parole Officer, Lena Headey took on the role of a police officer, alongside Steve Coogan in his first film role.
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Lena Headey appeared in the comedy The Actors, opposite Dylan Moran and Michael Caine, portraying the love interest of a struggling actor.
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Lena Headey is credited as voice actor for the character Callista in the video game Dishonored.
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Lena Headey found much wider recognition when she starred with Matt Damon and Heath Ledger in Terry Gilliam's adventure fantasy film The Brothers Grimm, as Angelika, whose woodsman father was transformed into a werewolf by the Evil Queen.
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Lena Headey's most known film role came perhaps in 2007, when Headey played Queen Gorgo in Zack Snyder's epic war film 300, based on the 1998 comic series of the same name by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, a fictionalized retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae within the Persian Wars.
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Lena Headey's character has a much larger role in the film than she does in the comic book, where she only appears in the beginning, and required her to film naked for one scene.
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Lena Headey starred as Sarah Connor in Fox's Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, a television spin-off of James Cameron's popular Terminator franchise.
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In 2009, Lena Headey played an ill-fated character in the slasher film Laid to Rest, which received a DVD release, had a part in a short film titled The Devil's Wedding, and provided her voice for an episode of the Cartoon Network series The Super Hero Squad Show, playing Black Widow and Mystique.
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Lena Headey briefly appeared in the independent comedy Pete Smalls Is Dead.
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Lena Headey was cast in the role after her friend and eventual co-star, Peter Dinklage, suggested her casting to producers.
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Lena Headey joined again with Ethan Hawke to star in The Purge, a "micro-budget" horror film, in which she took on the role of the matriarch of a family who find themselves endangered by a gang of murderers during the annual Purge, a night during which all crime, even murder, is temporarily legal.
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In 2017, Lena Headey appeared as a "predictably hard-boiled boss" in the crime thriller Thumper, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, and provided the voiceover for Mercedes A-Class television advertisement and Morgana in Trollhunters.
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In March 2022, Lena Headey was set to make her feature directorial debut with thriller film Violet based on a novel of the same name by SJI Holliday.
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Lena Headey has appeared on the covers of TV Guide, G3, Sunday Mirror and Germany's Filmstar.
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Lena Headey ranked No 64 on the Maxim magazine Hot 100 of 2007 list.
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Lena Headey was listed at No 4, No 10 and No 3 in AfterEllen's list of the Hot 100 in 2007,2008 and 2009, respectively.
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Lena Headey has been involved with humanitarian organisation the International Rescue Committee, advocating for migrants who have been languishing in Greece during the European migrant crisis, saying that in the face of rising populism and the "lost humanity in leadership", people should continue to "fight for the good".
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In 2018, Lena Headey did a voice-over for an advertisement by the charity Alzheimer's Research UK, which launched ahead of World Alzheimer's Day.
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Lena Headey was vegetarian, and stated in a 2011 interview that she occasionally follows a vegan diet.
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Lena Headey has a number of tattoos, including a large floral design on her back and a Pema Chodron quote on her ribs.
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Lena Headey told Esquire that she finds the process of getting tattoos "calming".
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Lena Headey has spoken about suffering from postnatal depression following his birth.
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On 10 July 2015, Lena Headey gave birth to a daughter named Teddy with filmmaker Dan Cadan, a childhood friend who had worked with her on his short film The Devil's Wedding.
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In October 2022, Lena Headey married American actor Marc Menchaca, whom she had been dating since 2020.
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Lena Headey is good friends with her Game of Thrones co-star Peter Dinklage, who first suggested her to Game of Thrones producers.