as Cersei Lannister
Character Overview: Older than Jaime by mere moments, Cersei is the twin sister of Jaime Lannister with golden hair and bright green eyes. She has married King Robert Baratheon and is thus Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. A wilful and ambitious woman, Cersei resents the restrictions put on her for her sex. She is always concerned for the safety of her children, Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen, and stops at nothing to protect them. – Wikipedia
Recent Events: After the death of Jon Arryn, Cersei joins her husband King Robert Baratheon on his journey to Winterfell to recruit Ned Stark as Hand of the King. She takes an early liking to Sansa, whom she believes will make quite an impression in the capitol city. However, Bran Stark discovers Cersei and Jaime having sex in a tower in Winterfell; Jaime thus shoves Bran off the tower, permanently paralyzing him. The journey back to King’s Landing a month later is rife with conflict–Sansa and Joffrey interfere with Arya dueling with a baker’s boy, and in the ensuing strife, Arya’s direwolf Nymeria harms Joffrey. As recompense, Cersei orders the wolf killed; when Nymeria cannot be found, Sansa’s direwolf Lady is offered as a replacement. This is the seed of conflict between Cersei and Ned; the two clash with words, then actions, and Ned is ultimately taken prisoner when he discovers the truth about Joffrey’s parentage. This occurs after the sudden death of Robert, who is mortally wounded on a boar hunt. Joffrey subsequently takes the Iron Throne and becomes king. Cersei intends Ned to remain alive. She manipulates Sansa into writing a letter to her brother Robb begging him to end his campaign against the Lannisters and bend the knee; Joffrey also has Sansa plea for her father’s life, to which he promises he will send Ned to the Wall. However, defying his mother’s wishes, Joffrey orders Ned Stark to be beheaded on the Sept of Baelor. At the same time, Cersei’s brother Jaime is taken hostage after a battle in the Whispering Wood.
Cersei then receives her younger brother Tyrion, who is sent to King’s Landing by Tywin as acting Hand of the King. Cersei fears that Tyrion is there to undermine her; however, the two agree to temporarily set aside their quarrels in order to retrieve Jaime. Tyrion insists that Arya Stark, who disappears from King’s Landing after her father’s beheading, must be recovered in order to be able to bargain for Jaime’s life. Unfortunately, as feared, Tyrion begins undermining Cersei at every turn, uncovering her spies and ultimately hatching a plan of his own that involves sending Cersei’s youngest daughter Myrcella to Dorne to forge an alliance with the Martells. He also hijacks Cersei’s relationship with the Alchemist’s Guild in order to secure his own stock of wildfire to defend the city from Stannis Baratheon, who is rallying his forces for war and sending letters accusing Cersei and Jaime of incest and claiming Joffrey is therefore a false king. Cersei holds down the fort during the Battle of Blackwater along with her retainer and Sansa Stark, but reveals that Ser Ilyn Payne was standing guard to kill them all if Stannis breached the gates. She also had planned to kill herself and her son Tommen, but is stopped when Tywin Lannister reaches the palace, victorious in combat.
Now returned to his seat of power, Tywin immediately tries to gain control of his wayward children. He orders Cersei to marry Loras Tyrell to secure an alliance with the Tyrells. (He orders a similar political marriage for Tyrion to Sansa Stark, which goes through successfully, albeit unhappily for both parties.) Cersei resists, and ultimately, Joffrey is chosen to marry Margaery Tyrell, setting the stage for what Tywin hopes is peace throughout Westeros. Cersei, however, is frightened of losing the power she’s held as Queen Regent to her son after Robert’s death; unfortunately for her, Margaery is quick-witted and fiercely capable of parrying Cersei’s machinations.
Cersei hopes her situation will improve when her brother/lover Jaime finally returns from the Stark camp. This quickly proves not to be true, as Cersei detects a change in Jaime since she last saw him. She is distraught at the sudden death of her son Joffrey and is adamant in charging Tyrion with the crime and seeing him to his death–even as she admits that Joffrey was a monster. Tyrion calls for trial by combat to assert his innocence, naming Oberyn Martell as his champion; Cersei counters with Ser Gregor Clegane, nicknamed “The Mountain” for his enormous size. Clegane is ultimately victorious, but Tyrion escapes execution, murdering Tywin in the process. Meanwhile, Cersei observes the Mountain’s treatment by the exiled maester Qyburn, who suggests less orthodox methods of keeping him alive. Cersei also decides to assert her love for Jaime openly, in defiance of her father.
Actor Bio: Lena Headey is a British actress who is best known for her appearances in The Brothers Grimm (2005), Possession (2002), and The Remains of the Day (1993). Headey starred as Queen Gorgo, a heroic Spartan woman in the period film 300 (2006), by director Zack Snyder. She was born in Bermuda, where her father, a Yorkshire police cadet, was sent shortly before she was born. She returned to England at the age of 5, where she was brought up in Yorkshire before moving to London in her teens. Headey had not gone to drama school before she became an actress.
At the age of 17, Headey’s performance in a one-off show in the company of six school friends caught the attention of a casting agent, who took a photo and asked her to audition. Eventually, Headey was cast in Waterland (1992), which became her big-screen debut. She honed her natural acting talent while filming and also took archery classes and horse training. She also took boxing classes in clubs in south London, where a former boxer had been teaching her to spar.
During her film career, spanning over 15 years, Headey has showed her range in a variety of roles, playing characters from Amazon-type warriors and action-minded women in The Cave (2005) and The Brothers Grimm (2005), to a lesbian florist in Imagine Me & You (2005). In addition to her film-work, Headey appeared as Sarah Connor in a TV spin-off of the popular Terminator film franchise, the FOX’s television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008).
More recently, Headey has reprised her role as Queen Gorgo in the 300 follow-up film 300: Rise of an Empire. She also portrayed Jocelyn Fray in the first film adaptation of the YA novel series The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, and will be portraying an as-yet-unknown character in the film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. – IMDb
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