Lena Headey Wanted a 'Better Death' for Cersei

Every Game of Thrones fan came into the final season with a mile-long wish list for an ideal ending, and by trying to give every single one of us what we wanted, writers ended up presenting a hurried mash-up of endings that felt like discount bin versions of the things we actually asked for.

And while I can almost forgive Dany’s lack of concealer taking the place of an actual character arc or the victor in the Game of Thrones being “stories,” I will never forgive the way the show underutilized Lena Headey as Cersei Lannister in the last episodes.

But at least I can console myself with the knowledge that Lena Headey agrees. While she wouldn’t expressly shit talk the final season in a recent interview with The Guardian, she did say she’d like to get drunk with showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss in order to tell them a few things:

“‘No, listen,” she says, “I invested as a viewer and I have my favourite characters. And I’ve got a few of my own gripes. But I haven’t sat down drunkly with David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] yet…“I will say I wanted a better death.’”

Headey’s terrifyingly calm, medieval Lucille Bluth portrayal of Cersei’s completely unhinged scheming kept the show watchable for entire seasons in which other, less compelling, characters boringly wandered around. Watching Cersei frantically try to manipulate her way back to safety as all her plans fell apart around her was the thing I was most looking forward to in the last episodes. But in the end, she stood in the wrong place and died by errant rocks. It was like if all the action of Richard III culminated in Richard leaving the battlefield, eating some fish that didn’t agree with him, and dying in the night.

Bullshit, I say, and so says Headey:

“Obviously you dream of your death,” she says. “You could go in any way on that show. So I was kind of gutted. But I just think they couldn’t have pleased everyone. No matter what they did, I think there was going to be some big comedown from the climb.”