Posted in: Game Of Thrones, HBO, Max, TV | Tagged: game of thrones, george r r martin, HBO, lena headey, max

Game of Thrones Star Lena Headey Wanted Cersei/Arya Smackdown Finale

Lena Headey had her own ideas for how Cersei's story should have ended on HBO's Game of Thrones - and yes, it's better than the show's.

Nobody likes how Game of Thrones (the TV series) ended, not the viewers, not the fans, not even the cast, who are at least the only ones who are publicly polite about it. The actors understand the pressures showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff were, but that doesn't mean they were happy about the scripts for the final season. Ever wonder what Lena Headey, who played Cersei Lannister, thought Cersei's story should have ended? Well, wonder no more.

At the Austin Film Festival, where Headey was promoting her directorial debut The Trap (a psychological thriller that stars her former Game of Thrones co-star Michelle Fairey), The Hollywood Reporter asked her the inevitable questions about what she thought about the ending of Game of Thrones and Cersei's fate. And she wasn't the only actor on the show who thought about the best ending for their own character.

"I think all of us did, to be honest," said Headey. "Because you start trying to write the story yourself. And Arya Stark actress Maisie Williams and I would fantasize about a Cersei and Arya showdown, that she would come back as Jaime. That was our dream. But they made different choices. I understood it from the showrunners' perspective, too. The amount of pressure, the massive amount of work and time involved, and trying to figure out how to get this complicated mix of stories just right." The closest she came to saying she and her fellow actors thought the ending sucked with this: "I think, in hindsight, everybody understands that. You're in it, and you've been so invested, there's a moment of, 'Why?' But I absolutely get it."

She doesn't miss being on the show anymore. Working hard and long hours on a show like Game of Thrones can take its physical and mental toll after all, but: "I miss the people — because you fall in love with people, and you create these family units. So that takes a little while to go through. There's a weird grief from those relationships. But I don't miss it. We did it. We put everything into it. It changed everyone's fucking world, and we'll always have it."

The biggest crime Weiss and Benioff committed as storytellers in the final season of Game of Thrones, and its ending was not giving fans what they hoped to see. Instead, they just raced to the finish line with the most lazy and obvious outcomes where previously smart and cunning characters become completely stupid so they could get to that finish line as soon as possible. It's a violation of the fundamental rules of storytelling and broke a promise to the audience, who could sense it even if they didn't have the words for it, and they've made their feelings known on social media. Given Headey's ideas, it might be fair to think that endings the actors of Game of Thrones might have had better ideas for how their plotlines and the show should have ended. After all, they knew their characters better than anyone else, sometimes more than the writers. Who doesn't want to see a final bloody catfight between Cersei and Arya? With knives!

Despite its hated ending, Game of Thrones is still one of the most popular shows streaming on MAX. New fans are discovering the good early seasons before they binge on the awful final season and ending. As for the ending of the "Game of Thrones" novels, original author George R.R. Martin is still working on it, and we are still YEARS away. Cersei will remember that. And like former co-star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Headey hasn't been able to watch House of the Dragons either.

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