She's Beautiful When She's Angry - Men's Health Interview

Interview for Men's Health from the period Lena was shooting TSCC, so she talks about the character of Sarah Connor, handling guns and also a bit about her personal life, her relationship with her family and also about being a mother.

British bombshell Lena Headey fights terminators for a living. It's the perfect role for a girl who grew up defending herself with a smart mouth, a sharp wit, and a mean right cross

The first time Lena Headey shot a man in the balls, she cried. She wasn't even looking when she fired the gun. But the sheer brutality of it all--the hard steel against the interior of her knuckle, the violent shudder in her groin after pulling the trigger, and the sound, that deafening, ear-breaking sound--was too overwhelming. At the very moment she should have focused on her target's chest, she turned away, the marauder in front of her suddenly a eunuch.

"It scared me," says Headey, 34, in an accent that glides between British working-class and the Queen's English. "I thought, My God, here's a gun and there's a life, and you shoot the gun and there ends the life." The target in this case was a paper assailant at the shooting range where Fox Television sends its action stars in training, and where for the last many weeks the actress has tried to appease her fear of weaponry. At the very least, the instruction has taught Headey to look like she knows what she's doing: On Fox's midseason entry Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, a prologue to the Terminator movies, she wields pistols, shotguns, and heavy artillery like a modern-day Bonnie Parker. As the embattled mom protecting her son--and the human race--from killer robots, Headey seems completely at home, albeit not at all at peace.

"[Playing with guns] is not something I'd do on a day off," she says over a salad of prosciutto, melon, and figs served al fresco at Pace, a stylish organic Italian eatery in Los Angeles, where Headey and her groom of six months have set up house since moving from London in July. "I don't really understand why Americans have such access to them and why they shoot them for sport." Headey's father, I point out, was a police officer: You'd think having a cop for a dad might have inured the actress to the general idea of firearms. "Are you kidding?" she asks incredulously. "He was a British cop. He didn't have a gun; he had a f--king stick. He'd run after people, and it was like, 'I'm going to hit you with my four-foot stick, so you better be scared and give up that lady's handbag.'"

With her fair English skin and shock of dark hair, Headey--most recognizable as the sultry Queen Gorgo from last year's sword-and-shield-fest 300--is delicate and slightly vulnerable looking; she's more Audrey Hepburn gamine than the Linda Hamilton tough she was cast to re-create in The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Yet beneath the foppish locks, the thick, arched eyebrows, and the high, alabaster cheekbones is a stubborn independence born of protecting her soul in a complicated family and defending her pride in bare-knuckle street brawls.

Born in Bermuda, Headey moved with her parents to Somerset, in southwest England, when she was 5. At age 11, the family moved to blue-collar Yorkshire in northern England. At her working-class mother's behest, Headey took elocution lessons to learn "to speak like a lady." But her newly manufactured upper-class diction seemed only to get her into trouble in a town where being unique was unacceptable. "I remember asking this boy where the playing field was, and he was like, 'Where are you from?' Then he literally smashed me on the head with his cricket bat because I was different," she says, and then contemplates, "or maybe he just wanted to kiss me."

It was the first of many rows for Headey, who insists she throws punches only to protect someone she loves--her younger brother, Tim, for instance, now an air steward for British Airways. "He stood out in school because he played the violin and painted his nails and his friends wore Lycra T-shirts," she remembers. "He got picked on, and I was like, 'Don't touch my brother.' I'm small but quite tough. When incensed, I can swing a punch."

The last knockdown she chooses to share took place in the early 1990s after she returned from London to Yorkshire. Already she had appeared in the critically acclaimed films Waterland and The Remains of the Day, and she had just been cast as Kitty in The Jungle Book. "My girlfriends and I were drinking, and these girls from a lower year who we always had trouble with asked, 'What are you doing here?'?" Headey recounts, her throat tightening at the memory. "I said I was having a drink with my mates, and one girl said, 'Oh, you think you're so f--king good coming back here, don't ya?' Then she punched me in the eye, and I showed up on my first day of a Disney film with a real shiner."

Headey confides that she has always carried a quiet rage that can detonate at the slightest injustice, real or imagined. "I have a scary side of me," she admits. "I f--king yell and shout and I'm horrid and then it's gone. My poor husband."

Headey's atavistic compulsion to be both open and honest and yet always on guard clearly inspires her in her current role. "I love Sarah Connor. There's a complexity in her that's great for an actor, because you're not just being a smiley face or a sad face," she says. "She has so many f--king issues, past and present."

She won't pinpoint the origin of some of her own issues--that wild temper of hers, or a certain conversational self-consciousness that melts away when she lapses into one of the many accents she uses to animate an anecdote. But one can guess that it might have something to do with what she will only call her "tricky" relationship with her mother. "It always comes down to the mum, now doesn't it?" she asks rhetorically. "Since being quite young, I've had a very strong sense of independence and survival. As a child, I was on my own two feet emotionally," she says. "I have an internal protectiveness where it's like, if it comes to just me, as frightened as I am of losing someone I love or things going sour or simply being alone, there is a dark place in my brain where I'm like, It could happen and I'm okay, I'm prepared."

But as independent as she paints herself, Headey has meticulously arranged her life in such a way that emotional support is always on call. For one, she has never not been in a romantic relationship. And she rarely trusts anyone she hasn't known for, say, most of her life. "If all this [TV and movie stuff] f--ks up, I still have these people I love in my life, and that keeps me stable and that's my reality," she says. "I could quite happily run a florist or a bake shop."

Or be a mom. Headey is drawn to her character's hyperdeveloped maternal instinct, almost as though she were informing her performance with a fantasy of the kind of mother the actress wishes she'd had herself. "The bottom line is that her own life isn't even about her, it's about her child," she says, going silent for a moment, her lucent green eyes looking skyward. "I guess when you become a mother, it's like that." Headey says she wants a baby "sooner rather than later. We'd have to work out the bump on Sarah Connor," she says, "but at least I'd have the boobs they want me to have."

Still, the maternal and nurturing side of Lena Headey can stay on the surface for only so long. As anxious commuters interrupt our meal, their car horns honking their way home along Laurel Canyon Boulevard, Headey sets down her fork and politely asks, "Do you mind if I go out there and punch them?"

Source: Men's Health

Interview by Jennifer Wolff

The Red Baron to be released in the USA

Good news for the American Lenaholics: The Red Baron is going to be released sometime this year in the US too, as announced on the FirstShowing.net! The movie produced in Germany will be distributed by the indipendent studio Monterey Media. On their official website the movie is listed under the section "Coming Soon", there you can also read some really positive reviews. In Germany the movie was released to theatres in April 2008 and it is available on dvd and blu-ray. If you haven't yet, check this movie out, it is really good overall and there's an amazing and very intense performance by Lena. She has a pretty important role as the nurse Käte, with whom the red baron Manfred von Richthofen played by Matthias Schweighöfer, falls in love. 
Here's the movie trailer:

You can also find the trailer on the Apple website under the category "Indipendent". Even if it's an indipendent movie (though with a budget of about 18€/22$ million is of one the most expensive German movies ever made), let's hope it will get a good theatrical release! And if while you wait you want to check out a little music video I made, go to the videos page :)

Good news for Game of Thrones

Things look really good for Game of Thrones as HBO programming chief Michael Lombardo said in a short interview with The Hollywood Reporter during the TCA Press Tour: 

Everything looks fantastic. [...] The director got great performances. Unlike a lot of projects like this, everything was shot on location. It has such a rich texture that it looks more expensive than it actually was. [...] The fantasy is so incidental, it has a very adult tone. You forget it's fantasy while you're watching it, and that's what I love about it. [...] I would be surprised if it doesn't [get greenlit]. It has everything going for it.

Lombardo also said that HBO executives will be able to view a rough cut of the pilot in just two weeks!! From The Hollywood Reporter we also learn that the network spent between 5$ and 10$ million to produce the pilot alone, that also involved some use of CGI. Everything looks very good for this new show which, as Lombardo said, if everything goes well could possibly air around March/April of the next year, so plenty of time to get used to the idea of a blonde and evil Lena :P

And even before that we might get to see some promos and have a preview of Lena's new role on this show!! 

Source: SerienJunkies, Winter is Coming

Lena Interview for Suicide Girls

A very long and interesting interview with Lena from Suicide Girls, where she talks about a lot of things like her life and career, Laid to Rest, The Sophisticates, the supernatural, her tattoeos and she also replies to some twitterers' questions. Enjoy! :-)

Lena Headey: Sarah Connor Laid To Rest

Friendship and a strong work ethic are core values for Sarah Connor Chronicles star Lena Headey. The Bermuda-born actress, who was raised in the working-class town of Huddersfield in the North of England, has come a long way, but she remains very down to earth.
Since her film debut opposite Jeremy Irons in Waterland back in 1992, Headey has built up a lengthy list of credits. Her breakout role didn't arrive until 2006 however, when she played the heroic Queen of Sparta in director Zack Snyder's highly stylized retelling of the story of the Spartan's epic battle with Persia. Having worked to protect her husband, the King of Sparta, in 300, Headey was then called on to protect her on-screen son, John Connor, from the Terminator in The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
While working on the Fox TV series, Headey forged a close bond with special effects guru Robert Hall (whose credits also include Buffy, Angel and Pineapple Express) and his partner in slime, producer and actress Bobbi Sue Luther. So when Robert and Bobbi decided to branch out and make their own blood and guts genre horror flick, Headey was more than happy to jump on board.
Though made on a beyond-low budget that was supplemented by friends and favors, Laid To Rest, which was the first film to be shot on Panasonic's new HPX-3000 high-def DV camcorder, has a polished analog look despite its bargain digital price tag. Shot on location at a deserted psychiatric hospital in Maryland, the film exemplifies the DIY methodology of Hollywood's next generation filmmakers.
With Season 2 of Sarah Connor coming to a close, and the fate of a follow up season still hanging in the balance, Headey ultimately hopes to join their ranks. Over the past couple of years, during downtime on TSCC set, the actress worked on her own project, which she describes as a "quirky ensemble comedy." Having penned and prepped it, with The Chronicles behind her for the time being, she now hopes to direct and produce it. If all goes Headey's way, she'll soon be the one making calls to friends for favors.
SuicideGirls called up Headey while she was enjoying a rare moment of rest, surrounded by her dogs, on the couch at her Los Angeles home.

Nicole Powers: I wanted to start at the very beginning, because you've had an interesting life, I mean you were born in Bermuda!
Lena Headey: I was. I was there till I was five.

NP: Do you have any memories of Bermuda?
LH: I don't really. I look at books on it, photographs, and I do that thing like everybody, it's that sort of edited memory where you think, 'I sort of remember,' but you don't really have a physical memory.

NP: In a way it might be a good thing, because going from Bermuda to Huddersfield might have been I bit of a shock.
LH: Yeah. Quite traumatic!
My mom and dad were in the [police] cadets in Yorkshire, and I don't know what it was about Huddersfield and Bermuda, if it was a twin town, but they took trainees out for a year to Bermuda. They went out there for a year and I came along as a treat midway through.

NP: I can imagine, if it was a twin town thing, no disrespect to the North of England, because I'm from there, but I think someone maybe got a raw deal there.
LH: Yeah! Huddersfield! [laughs]

NP: So your family moved back to Huddersfield and you were there until you were seventeen?
LH: Yeah. I moved to London and worked and lived on various sofas in various houses for about two, probably three years. Then when I was twenty I moved properly down with my friend and we got a flat, and I lived there until two years ago when I moved out here.

NP: Couch surfing being an important skill in any actor's early career.
LH: Yeah. I was a really good couch surfer, but thankfully I had lots of lovely people who really looked after me.

NP: Did you develop a preference for any particular kind of couch?
LH: I liked to have a couch with a dog. I stayed with one friend who had three animals, so I quite liked staying there.

NP: Your online bio says you were in a school play at the Royal Nation Theatre, and someone spotted you and you ended up in a movie opposite Jeremy Irons.
LH: That's actually the truth!

NP: So what kind of school production was it?
LH: Well they did this thing at the Royal National Theatre every year -- I hope they still do it because it's a great opportunity -- where they take youth theater groups and high schools...and they pick about nine to go and do a performance over three nights. So three schools a night get to perform on the Olivier Stage which is pretty magnificent for people who come from a normal high school. And that's what we did. We did this play, which was a fabulous idea from my drama teacher who was like, "Let's do a musical about Vietnam."

NP: A musical about Vietnam?
LH: [laughs] Yes. Fabulous! And that begun my illustrious career.

NP: You have to tell me about a couple of the musical numbers from Vietnam: The Musical.
LH: We were all kind of running around with guns, and then we would stop and sing sad songs about lost sons and weeping mothers. So it had a good sentiment.

NP: Was there any tap dancing involved?
LH: No tap dancing. Just lots of sort of kneeling and singing earnestly about death.

NP: So that makes the story about you being spotted in this production all the more remarkable.
LH: I wasn't spotted in the production...You had to put pictures of the cast up in the foyers, and [my drama teacher] took pictures of us all at school kind of standing around. A casting director called Susie Figgis, who cast Waterland, which was my first film, saw the picture and though, "Oh, she can come and read." And that was it. It was kind of bonkers. It was a little Kodak print picture, and that's how it started. It was mad.

NP: Since then you've worked a lot. You've got a really impressive résumé that was, for the most part, under the radar.
LH: It's not been constant. I wish it had. I've had a couple of years when it's been scary, but it happens to everyone. It's not the most stable career...It's such a weird thing acting. There are jobs you do for love and, I always thought that would be the way, and then you get a mortgage and you get responsibilities and sometimes you've got to do something that will pay the bills because it's too stressful.

NP: So what would you consider your breakthrough role?
LH: I think it was probably 300. If you're talking about something that changed things, I guess it was 300 because it was so huge...
It's a funny thing, I had no deathly ambition to become super famous. I just want to work. I want to be able to put a roof over my head, and make great films and also create a path for me to make movies as a director...I consider myself a working actor and not a famous actor.

NP: In 300, as with Sarah Connor, you're the woman behind the man, working to protect the man, and fighting alongside the man. Does it frustrate you that there's so few strong roles for women?
LH: Sometimes. Sometimes it's frustrating. But throughout Sarah Connor, I've been writing a lot. It's inspired me to write pieces for me and other women and men I know who are great actors who don't necessarily get the chance to do the things they're capable of. I just think it is really frustrating that the great roles for women are given to the top cream of actresses. But that's just the way it is. If you are famous and a great actress, and you bring money in, that then allows you to get the cream of the crop in terms of scripts and characters.

NP: One of the reasons I like the part that you play in Laid To Rest , and also the part that Bobbi plays, is that although it's a genre horror movie, neither of your characters dissolve into the usual pathetic girly hysterical archetype.
LH: Absolutely. I think Rob's a really smart filmmaker. He's just beginning, and I think he's super capable. And I love with Bobbi's character, with the amnesia and kind of really not knowing what's going on, that she was never like a dizzy fool. I enjoyed that, and also they're my mates -- number one -- I'm up for doing anything creative with friends. It's always really good fun and satisfying.

NP: Did you talk about the character beforehand and make the choice that you didn't want to be archetypical screaming girlies?
LH: Well I didn't. I'm sure Bobbi and Rob talked about it for a long, long time. I know Bobbi was nervous about doing it and she pulled it off amazingly well, and I think she's great in the movie.
I'd just done a movie in Rhode Island, and then flew the night that I finished to Rob and Bobbi in Maryland to the mad fucking psycho ward they were filming in. And we just did it. I mean they were shooting for 28 days and nights, straight through pretty much, and I just walked in and did it. It was fun for me. It was a character, instead of playing some pretty girl or someone's girlfriend or something. It was nice to play this woman who was simple, and wanted to take care of someone, and that's really all she was.

NP: How did it come about? How did they convince you to do it -- because it was a very low budget independent movie?
LH: Well, friendship goes along way with me, especially good friends. And I'd seen Rob's first movie he did called, Lightning Bug, and I absolutely fell in love with it. It really charmed me as a film. I just think he's got great potential as a filmmaker and Bobbi's amazing, and can convince anyone to do anything. She's got a producer's persuasion down pat. And then we've got a group of mates and everyone does their own stuff, and then they go, "Do you mind coming in to make cups of tea?" And I'm like, "Absolutely." That's what it's about for me. You can go and make your money and do all of that stuff but then you get back to basics, and it's really exciting and it fills a void perhaps.

NP: I understand that originally you were begging Robert to give your character an eye patch.
LH: Yeah. It's kind of an obsession.

NP: Why the eye patch obsession?
LH: Well, it started a long time ago. I read a script, like ten years ago, and it never got made. Maybe this is why. It was about this crazed, inbred woman, who has one eye and she wore an eye patch. It was a black comedy, and I loved it. I'd love to play her and go full hog with prosthetic teeth and all that. I've been obsessed with having an eye patch...But sadly this wasn't the role for the eye patch.

NP: Hopefully one will come. So you're in Maryland, in an old mental institution, running around with piles of gore. It must have been surreal.
LH: Yeah. I mean the night when I arrived, I got picked up at the airport and we drove to the location, and, honestly, it was quite amazing this place, really bizarre, and kind of interesting and weird. This mental hospital was fucking huge, like vast. As we drove in, there was this massive thunderstorm. It was pitch black, and then lightening would go, and it would light up the entire place. There were two kind of big buildings and then tons of outbuildings where the staff would live and the patients would live.
It was so strange. Just sort of being in that place. There was a morgue downstairs, though I don't think any bodies were in it anymore. But it was the place where they would keep people. They also performed lobotomies until just before it closed, so it's got a huge history. Being there -- I'm a complete believer in other beings being here -- not aliens obviously...

NP: The supernatural?
LH: Yes. So, there were a couple of times when you were sitting there and you're not being used, and you've got a couple of hours, and you'd just go and sit in the main wing of the hospital. It was a long corridor with lots and lots of rooms off it. It was really weird --- really weird. I had my little dog with me, and she would run up the corridor to a certain point, and I would throw a ball and she wouldn't go and get the ball. Every time she'd stop at a door. It was a closed door...and it kept happening.

NP: Where you glad to be out of there by the end?
LH: I was, but I tell you, to make a film of that genre, it's a great place to be. If you're making a horror movie and you've got somewhere like that, it's pretty fantastic. You've got millions of rooms you can dress any way you want. Everything's there for you and it's got a definite tense feeling about it.

NP: Having seen the end result, with all the effects completed, what surprised you the most?
LH: I think it's always surprising when you've got no budget. No budget filmmaking can look very basic when you're watching it being done. I just think visually it's really incredible. All the big crane shots they did outside. I love that one shot where the crane just keep moving and it's all one take, and the guys runs out of the barn, and keeps going, and the mist is curling around -- things like that I'm just impressed by. I think there's no right or wrong in filmmaking. I think you can't really judge too harshly. People are laying out their brain and their heart and experimenting, and it's a complete lesson to try and make movies and see your mistakes and learn. I just think anyone who gets up and actually makes a film deserves some respect. It's a tough thing to fucking do, to pull off.
I think it looks great. I think Bobbi's really great, I think she should be proud of herself. You know, it's a smart horror movie, and their aren't a lot of those, even though I enjoy all of them.

NP: You're working on producing now?
LH: Yes. I've got a script I've written that's a comedy. I've had it for a year, and I've now finished Sarah Connor so I've got time. My heads opened up a little, which is nice. So I finished my script, and I've got a trailer which I shot and I'm editing that, and I'm going to send them on out and see what happens.

NP: What kind of comedy is it?
LH: It's a quirky ensemble comedy about a group of slightly mad but connected people in Los Angeles. It's kind of a caper with slight odd romance. Everyone's very strange but very amusing. It'll be easy on the eye, and it'll hopefully make people laugh.

NP: And your were writing this while you were doing Sarah Connor?
LH: Yeah. I wrote a short, and I shot it last year, and I somehow managed to get Piper Perabo and John Cleese and various other people to be in it.

NP: Wow. You got John Cleese!
LH: I did. I somehow managed to persuade John Cleese to come hang out and be silly, and, as always, he was wonderful.

NP: Did you know him prior to that?
LH: I did Jungle Book with him years and years ago, and he's a lovely man and we became friends. I hadn't seen him for a long time, and I rung him and I just said, "Would you do me a huge favor." And he said, "I don't usually do this, but for you I will."

NP: I notice the cool people, who are like that, are the ones that continually work. You can do something that shoots you into superstardom, but at the end of the day, if you're not a pleasant person to be around, people aren't going to want to work with you moving forward.
LH: Absolutely. It's true, it's true. That's what I mean about being a working actress. This is my job. I don't see it as a bestowance of greatness. This is just what I do. I pay a mortgage with it, and I also have immense fun and enjoyment in it. When you come up with people that you like and support you, and you can pay that back to other people who want to make movies and help them out, it's a really cool way to live.

NP: Hollywood divas exist, but often only for a very short time in the grand scheme of things.
LH: I think that divas do exist, because people who bring in money box office-wise, they're allowed to behave like that. There is a sort of tolerance for it because it equals money. It's a tricky one. I just hope I can stay in the industry and learn as I keep working either as an actress or, god willing, be able to make my own movies. It's an amazing arena to be in, and yet it needs to be treated with respect. You're always learning, you can never think, "Right! I'm done. I've done it!" There's always things to do, and always people to learn from. All the directors I've worked with -- it's the best university in the world.

NP: Coming from the North of England too, there is this real Northern value of "being down to earth." There's no greater compliment that you can pay someone "up North," than saying, they're great, cause they're "really down to earth."
LH: It's very true. Also, I was brought up with a massive work ethic, like nothing comes for free, and you do it, you commit and you do it. I still believe in that.

NP: When you stop working, what do you do for fun?
LH: I drink. I do a little bit of that. I've literally just finished, Monday I finished work at 10 p.m., and it's been pretty much two years of my life. I'm tired but I'm also so excited about what potentially could happen in the next few months. I've got four dogs, and so I'm walking them, and I'm hanging out with my husband, and seeing mates, and just sort of enjoying my house, which I love. It's sort of a holiday for me. When you don't see something a lot of the time, it's just enjoyable just living instead of just working.

NP: We'll you've traveled so much with your career, I'm sure you're enjoying having a holiday at home.
LH: Exactly.

NP: I understand that you have quite a lot of body art.
LH: Yes.

NP: You don't really see it on Sarah Connor.
LH: Well no, because they hate that I have it. The powers that be say she would never have them... So they cover them up. I don't really mind them doing that because they're my tattoos, they're not Sarah Connor's. It's just part of being an actor.
I personally love them. I find them charming and I feel that they're part of me. A lot of people don't like them, especially in the industry, but everybody has them now. I tell you, if you could find the perfect chemistry for covering up a tattoo, you'd be a billionaire.

NP: What do they use on you? Just heavy foundation?
LH: There are lots and lots of products for tattoo coverage. It's a very laborious process to get them done, to get them covered. I know people are constantly working on ways to do it quickly. If you can find the right ingredients so the skin doesn't wrinkle and it doesn't go dry and it doesn't change color, I'm telling you that's the secret billionaire's ingredient. If you can get that, you're fucking laughing.

NP: What's your favorite tattoo?
LH: I like them all really. I've just had my back piece finished and I love that. It's a big piece on my back with peonies and swallows. It's got a lot of movement in it, and it's just something I'd always wanted to do. It goes from my lower back, it sort of curls around my womanly shapes, and then it just comes up around my shoulder.

NP: Where did you have that done?
LH: I had that done in Brooklyn in New York, by a friend of mine called Chops who has a shop called Hold Fast. He's now moved to Portland, but he came to stay with us, and he finished it off for me here in Los Angeles.

NP: How many hours under the needle was that?
LH: I'd say seven, on and off. But I fell asleep during the last one. I find it incredibly relaxing.

NP: The pain doesn't bother you at all?
LH: Sometimes, on various bits, on various parts of my body it does, but Chops is really wonderful. He's very fast and he's one of the most lovely men in the world. He did Rob's arm, and he did a couple of tattoos on Bobbi. We all went round to Bobbi's for dinner and he brought his tattoo kit. We had dinner, and then we had a little bit of ink.

NP: I told our Twitter followers that I was going to be chatting to you, and I got some questions from them that I should ask you. @clairaudience wants to know what scares you about the future and technology?
LH: I'm already scared by technology because I'm rubbish at it...That's what's funny about it. Literally, I'm rubbish...That's why it's called acting -- I'm so far from Sarah Connor it's not even funny.

NP: Next question from Twitter: @trevor31u wants to know how you feel about following in the footsteps of Linda Hamilton?
LH: Like I say, I don't consider my legacy, or anything like that. I did my job. I did my job as best I could and I committed to playing her and that's it really. It's not rocket science. I can't explain anymore than that.

NP: I think because you make things so simplistic, that's why your characters are so real. You don't have this formal training that says you need to walk in certain ways and project your voice, you're not putting all these things on top of what you're doing. Your MO is that you just want to make it believable.
LH: Absolutely. I think for example, you take Sean Penn in Milk and you take Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler. Two brilliant performances but very different ways of acting. I mean Mickey Rourke, very real, very raw, a very honest performance, and moving and open. Sean Penn became this other person. It was like he inhabited someone else's body, and it was a fucking amazing performance. So there's lots of different ways of acting, but for me, I'm not playing a historical character, I'm playing a mother who is a single parent, bringing up a teenage son, who also happens to save the world -- as a byline to her life. And the way I would play that is someone who's passionate and scared and angry and a mother, all these things. So I approach that just trying to be honest within the boundaries of her...There are different ways to be angry, and there are different ways to show excitement, and different ways to show lust, and all these things, and I just think, with all these people, how would it come through them.

NP: The final Twitter question is rather bizarre, but here we go: @bob_hope wants to know if you like pound cake?
LH: What is pound cake.

NP: It's one of those generic spongy things.
LH: Not really a massive sponge fan to be honest. Do you know what I love? My friends bring it out -- Angel Delight! As bad as it is, on those cold mornings I think, "Oh, I'm going to whip up a bowl of Butterscotch Angel Delight." It is the most pikey, white trash desert you could ever have, but occasionally that's good.

Interview by Nicole Powers
Apr 8, 2009

Game of Thrones creating media buzz

It seems like Game of Thrones is one of this year's most anticipated projects  not only by the fans of the books series (and Lenaholics too!), but also by tv critics, as it's the pilot they're mostly looking forward to seeing. The Winter is Coming Blog and the Game of Thrones website report a number of articles where the series is mentioned. Check them out!

Let's start our 'press review' with MSN Canada that mentions Lena as the big-name actor with the lead role in the pilot :)

There are already two blogs devoted to following the casting and Northern Ireland location shoot of this series' pilot episode, which HBO hasn't yet confirmed will air. The reason for the feverish fan interest? The series is an adaptation of the first novel in George R.R. Martin's beloved fantasy series that uses knights, tournaments, creatures and icy locations in the service of telling human stories where villains aren't always the bad guys and where the honourable solution isn't always the best one in the long run. (Thanks to Time Magazine and the Chicago Tribune for these observations.) Lena Headey from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles will play a royal woman who's as cunning as the men around her. Peter Dinklage, Sean Bean, Jennifer Ehle and Mark Addy costar. With any luck, HBO will green light enough games to take us through all the novels in Martin's saga. 

Entertainment Weekly gives some information about Game of Thrones underlining the buzz that this project is already creating and naming Lena along with Sean Bean as the main stars:

Meanwhile, HBO—which, like EW, is owned by Time Warner—is generating heat for a pilot it hasn’t even picked up yet: the network’s adaptation of the fantasy book A Game of Thrones, starring Sean Bean and Lena Headey. Filmed entirely on location in Ireland and Morocco, Thrones supposedly boasts a budget that rivals that of the famously lavish Rome, but HBO co-chairman Michael Lombardo is quick to point out that all the network’s shows have to meet high expectations—especially in light of stiff competition from the likes of Showtime and USA. “We are taking shots at shows that we wouldn’t have taken a shot at five years ago,” says Lombardo, who, with co-chairman Richard Plelper and entertainment president Sue Naegle, has developed an unprecedented number of pilots. “We opened our arms and invited people to come in and pitch things even if they didn’t think it was HBO. We stopped second-guessing ourselves.

And also EW's critic Ken Tucker talks about GoT here.

James Poniewozik, critic from Time, lists GoT as one of the new projects he's looking forward to and anticipates 2011 as the possible air date if it gets picked up:

Game of Thrones. OK, we don't know if this show will exist, and if it ever does, it may not see air until 2011. But the new year should at least finally bring word as to whether the much-buzzed-about HBO pilot for George R. R. Martin's grown-up fantasy saga will become a series. (Who knows?)

And finally two more mentions, where the writers of the articles show a high level of confindence that the pilot will be picked up :)

Broadcasting and cable:

Post-True Blood, the premium cable networks suddenly have a thirst for geek-friendly fare, exploring genres that otherwise may have been left to Syfy. HBO is producing a 60-minute pilot for Game of Thrones, based on the A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy novels of George R.R. Martin. The expensive pilot garnered buzz at Comic-Con and online, with many industry observers expecting a series pickup shortly after the pilot gets delivered early this year.

And TV guide Canada also giving some insight into the production:

HBO commissioned a pilot of the A Song of Ice and Fire book series (titled Game of Thrones), but only a pilot. The cabler will see how that looks before making any further decisions, but the industry feeling is that it really needs to screw the pilot up for there not to be any more episodes. From what I understand, the actual series will follow three storylines and remain fairly faithful to the books, which ideally would be one covered per season.

This one has been in production for quite some time, and was put on hold during the Writers Guild of America strike of 2007. Watch for a decision to be made early next year, most likely by the spring.

There's also a brief mention on The Hollywood Reporter that talks about all the pilots  commissioned by HBO this year. I wonder if those other projects are to be considered as a competition for GoT or they can all coexist on the network... two more months to go until we find out for certain, keep your fingers crossed for our lovely Lena! 

 

Happy New Year!!!

New Year, new layout! Hope you like it!  As for Lena herself (:P) based on some  newer pics, I think it's pretty safe to say that the rumour about her pregnancy is true!! It's gonna be a fantastic year for Lena and her hubby, so once again congratulations!!
And with the new year here comes a new poll: when did you first discover Lena's talent?! The winner of the first poll (Which is your favourite character played by Lena) is Luce!! But Sarah Connor defended herself pretty well too as expected and 'surprisingly' Kaisa from Aberdeen comes in third place! Sorry I forgot to list Käte from The Red Baron! Here are the results:

Luce: 32 votes (56%)
Sarah Connor: 13 votes (23%)
Kaisa: 5 votes (9%)
Queen Gorgo: 4 votes (7%)
Angelika, Gina Mc Vey, Other: 1 vote (2%)
Sylvia, Sally Seton, Cathy Jones: 0 votes

Thank you very much for voting!!! And Happy 2010!!!