Lena Headey on Cersei’s Long Walk

After three novels that focused mainly on the points of view of the Stark clan, give or take Tyrion Lannister and a couple others, George R.R. Martin changed gears and made Cersei Lannister a Point of View character in A Feast for Crows,  the fourth book in his ongoing series. It was a gutsy move, to suddenly force the reader to see the world through the eyes of a paranoid, slightly stupid woman whose vanity and lust for power drove her every action. That’s partly because, once you understand who Cersei is, it can be irritating to read her chapters and notice all the mistakes she makes, none of which she considers mistakes. But it had another effect, and that was to force the audience to sympathize with her. Whereas the show has always made sure to add scenes that both explain and humanize Cersei Lannister, the books didn’t bother until we began to see the world through her eyes.

And none too soon, either. For Cersei, without having any sort of reliable curbs on her worst impulses, lands herself in the deepest water imaginable, the prisoner of religious fanatics who mean only to wear down her spirit before breaking her completely. After weeks of torture, Cersei finally gives them what they want—but only to the minimum extent possible, believing that this will get her out of the situation and back somewhere she can take control again. (Hers was a great politician’s confession. I almost expected her to say that she was sorry “if the gods were offended.”) But the deal she makes, and the punishment she faces, is beyond anything she imagined.

In fact, the punishment was bad enough that when the producers asked permission to film it in Croatia’s old city of Dubrovnik, initially the city balked at having a naked woman parade down the city streets as crowds jeered. Eventually (and after contingency plans were made), they relented, as long as the filming did not take place in front of the church. The producers agreed and the show went on.

According to Lena Headey, it took three days to shoot. And though in most of the scene, that’s not actually her body, but a double with her face overlayed on top of it, she herself still had to walk the length of the streets, and experience the terror of being abused by the crowd.

“It’s not hard when people are screaming at you and you look like shit and you’re being f–king humiliated to figure out how that would feel…there’s a part of you that’s f–king terrified. I can’t even imagine people wanting your blood. Cersei has done wrong, but she doesn’t really deserve this.”

Martin based Cersei’s walk on an actual historical event from the later 1400s. But as Headey points out, women still suffer from ritualized public humiliation today. “They still do it now,” she said. “They take women out and stone them to death.”

“I don’t think anyone deserves that treatment…She’s been beaten and starved and humiliated. She thinks when she comes out and confesses that this is it—even when she’s on her knees [confessing to the High Sparrow], she’s partly lying. She thinks she’s good to go. She has no idea what’s coming when she walks out to the steps, or that they’re going to shave her hair off like Aslan.”

One of the striking things about the scene, seeing it staged from a third person perspective, is how noble and regal she came off throughout her walk. Though she is experiencing a deeply horrific moment, she holds her head high, her eyes forward, and even when she slips and falls, she stands again and keeps moving with total determination. In the books, it is felt by the end that Cersei is done in the game, that she will never be able to hold power again, because of her shame. But Lena Headey’s performance is convincing enough that, though she may never hold power, she might still wield it from behind the scenes, like her brother Tyrion once did so effectively. But we, like everyone, will have to wait until Season 6 to see how that works out.

Headey says she has “no idea” what’s in store for Cersei, but has a suggestion: “I think she’s got some people to kill before she’s done.”

• Published on 06/15/2015 at 5:00 PM CDT
• Last updated on 06/15/2015 at 5:10 PM CDT