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Lena Headey is an English actress known for playing the Sarah Connor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones. Lena portrays Jocelyn Fray in The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones.

Early life

Headey was born in Hamilton, Bermuda, the daughter of Sue and John Headey. Her father, a Yorkshire police cadet, was stationed there at the time. She has one younger brother, Tim. The family moved to Somerset when she was five, and then relocated to Shelley, West Yorkshire when Headey was eleven. As a child, she took ballet lessons for a time before being told to discontinue.

Career

Headey had her first experience of acting as a pupil at Shelley College and was noticed by a casting agent at the age of 17 while performing in a school production at the Royal National Theatre. The agent took a photo and asked her to audition. Later, she got a supporting role alongside Jeremy Irons and Ethan Hawke in the 1992 British drama film Waterland.

Lena went on to land roles in major films with higher-profile actors such as The Remains of the Day (1993), which received eight Academy Awards nominations, Disney's The Jungle Book, released in 1994, where she played Katherine. The film had positive reviews and earned nearly $44 million in the United States. Headey, alongside her co-stars received favourable reviews with James Berardinelli praising their "solid performances". For her starring role in the 2000 drama Aberdeen, Headey received several good reviews for her performance in the film as well as the Silver Iris Award for Best Actress at the 2001 Brussels European Film Festival.

After working steadily as an actress, getting small and supporting roles in films throughout the 1990s, she found fame for her lead performances in big-budget films that became well-known such as the fantasy film The Brothers Grimm (2005), in which she acted opposite Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, the action period film 300 (2007), portraying the role of Queen Gorgo and the adventure and biopic feature The Red Baron (2008). Headey's film and TV credits has only continued to grow since.

She is best known for portraying Cersei Lannister in HBO's hit fantasy series Game of Thrones since 2011, a performance that has earned her several award nominations, including an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. She is also known for playing the titular character Sarah Connor on Fox's Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and the villainous drug lord Ma-Ma in Dredd.

Personal life

Headey was once engaged to Johnny Cicco, and dated actor Jason Flemyng for nine years, whom she met during the filming of The Jungle Book, from 1994 to 2003; she had a tattoo of the latter's name in Thai on her arm, which has since been covered. She married musician Peter Loughran in May 2007. Headey and Loughran have a son, Wylie Loughran, who was born on March 31, 2010. Headey and Loughran separated in 2011 and she filed for divorce in the Los Angeles County Superior Court on July 20, 2012. The divorce was finalized on December 26, 2013.

In February 2015, Headey confirmed she is expecting her second child in summer 2015. On April 16, 2015, Headey stated that the baby will be a girl.

Headey has campaigned on behalf of animal rights. Headey was a vegetarian, however in a 2011 interview she stated she now eats meat again, albeit rarely. Headey also has a number of tattoos. Headey is good friends with her Game of Thrones co-star Peter Dinklage, who she has stated first pitched the role of Cersei Lannister to her.

References

Smallwikipedialogo This page uses content from an article at Wikipedia. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. The text of Wikipedia is available under either the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License or the GNU Free Documentation License.

External links

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