Lena Headey Fought With ‘Game of Thrones’ Showrunner Over Cersei’s Sex Scene

If anything in the Game of Thrones Season 8 premiere “Winterfell” took fans aback, it’s probably what Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) did with Euron Greyjoy (Pilou Asbaek). Namely, she slept with him. Even more surprising? Star Lena Headey was not okay with it.

We’ve known since Game of Thrones Season 6 that the one thing Euron Greyjoy desires is to sleep with/marry a queen. It’s why Yara Greyjoy (Gemma Whelan) hastened to forge an alliance with Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) before her uncle could get to her, and it’s the leverage Cersei has been using to keep the chaotic character in her good graces. As long as she withholds herself, he’s got to do more and more to impress her. So it was a bit surprising when she finally succumbed to Euron’s advances and wordlessly invited him to bed.

EW reports that Headey fought with showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss on this development. “I kept saying, ‘She wouldn’t, she wouldn’t, that she would keep fighting.’ But [Benioff and Weiss] obviously know what they’re doing and were adamant Cersei would do what she had to do.”

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Evidently, Asbaek was also less than thrilled about the scene. “We had a lot of discussions. Would it be out of character for her to be with Greyjoy for power?” Asbaek said. “Then we decided to try it out and see if it works. Sometimes you have to show different sides of a character. You have to surprise yourself as an actor but you also have to surprise yourself as a character.”

Headey added that the scene eventually did make sense to her as it represents Cersei’s enduring perseverance now that Jaime is gone. “She goes to the place where she doesn’t want to go, which makes it more powerful sad because of who she’s not with.”

As the scene plays, though, it does make a tragic sort of sense. Now that Jaime is gone, Cersei has no one left. As Decider’s Game of Thrones recapper Evan Davis wrote:

“All love has vanished from her existence. Her children are dead. She has ordered Bronn to assassinate Jaime, who betrayed her. This is her life now–hollow, meaningless. Her baby will know no father but Euron. Cersei is an unrepentant monster, it’s true. But she has also lost everything to that fundamental flaw in her character, that nobody in the world matters but herself, her brother, and her children. Now, only she is left.”

Cersei’s decision to sleep with Euron may not initially make sense, but it does as a sign of how far Cersei has fallen from the woman she once was. Plus, hate sex is a good balm for pining after elephants. Well, almost.

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