It has been more than a decade since Cersei Lannister’s brutal Walk of Atonement became one of the defining scenes in Game of Thrones, and Lena Headey has once again addressed why she chose to use a body double for the sequence.
In a new interview, Headey said she was surprised by the backlash that followed after viewers realised she had not performed the nude portions of the scene herself. The response, she suggested, said as much about audience expectations around women’s bodies on screen as it did about the scene itself.
Although many viewers assumed Headey performed the full sequence herself, the actress later clarified that a body double was used for the nude portions of the scene. Speaking to Page Six, she said she found the criticism over that choice hard to understand.
“I was really shocked by the anger, by this idea that I’d duped the audience,” Headey told The Telegraph.
“But by that point everyone knew [The cast], it was insane simply going anywhere, and I was with 3,000 extras.”
Headey explained that while she loves acting, the enormous scale of the production meant she would have struggled to deliver the emotional performance required if she had also been dealing with the pressure of being naked in front of thousands of extras.
“I wouldn’t have been able to do the emotional part of the job,” she said.
“I’d have been in full-on defensive mode.”
She also reflected on how her age and experience shaped that decision. Headey said she felt able to draw a line for herself in a way that many younger performers might not feel comfortable doing.
“By that point, I’d been through the wringer,” she said.
“I could stand up for myself. I’m not saying those actresses couldn’t, but they were much younger and more vulnerable, and had far less experience of being in front of people and the camera and performing.”
Headey has been consistent about that view over the years. In 2016, she made similar comments to Entertainment Weekly, saying some people decided she was ‘less of an actress’ because she did not do the nudity herself. She said, however, that the intensity of the scene was exactly why she made that call.
“I know I’m a very emotional actor and I get really driven by that,” she explained at the time. “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