The Stunning Transformation Of Lena Headey

Headey was raised in England — more specifically Highburton, a village in blue-collar Yorkshire with around 3,000 residents. "I'm a Yorkshire lass in my soul and in my heart," she told The New York Times. But the girl from Yorkshire actually wasn't born there or anywhere near there. Headey was born to English parents in the islands of Bermuda, which is technically a self-governing British territory for those not up on their United Kingdom history.

Her dad was stationed in Bermuda as a police officer when she was born. The family eventually moved to Somerset in southwest England when Headey was 5 years old and then Highburton when she was 11. Headey doesn't talk a whole lot about her time in Bermuda, and there's a perfectly good reason for it. She told Vulture, "I was too young to remember any of my time there. Home for me is Yorkshire..."

Just because Headey was a tomboy, that doesn't mean she couldn't talk like a lady. Headey told Men's Health that her mom signed her up for elocution lessons "to speak like a lady." And unlike with her ill-fated ballet stint, this time she wasn't persuaded to discontinue the lessons. She went through with them and wouldn't you know it, they worked — maybe even too well.

She said her upper-class elocution made her stand out in her working class town. And the way she makes it sound, that wasn't the kind of town where you want to stand out. She told Men's Health, "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." It's also possible that it had nothing to do with her accent and more to do with her looks. She suggested, "Maybe he just wanted to kiss me."

Despite having a decent acting resume to her name, Headey felt most people didn't really notice her prior to Game of Thrones. She wasn't exactly appearing on the cover of Entertainment Weekly or Vanity Fair back in those days. And that was perfectly fine with Headey. While promoting 300, she told ThoughtCo., "I've worked for 15 years without being recognized or known pretty much anywhere, and for that to change terrifies me. I love my life; I love my anonymity."

In true Headey fashion, she said one of the perks of going under the radar back then was "being able to be trashed at parties and nobody's going, 'Look at her! Look at her with watercress in her teeth.'" She dreaded the idea of being photographed, calling it "an invasion of privacy." About five years later, Headey would join the cast of one of the biggest TV shows of all time, eliminating her much-enjoyed anonymity in the process. 

Headey married musician Peter Loughran in 2007 and together they became parents to son Wylie in 2010, which just so happened to be the same year she was filming the first season of Game of Thrones. The show did its best to hide the pregnancy, as reported by Vulture, but that wouldn't be the only time motherhood would affect Headey's performance.

She began approaching mother roles in a different manner, including her part in The Purge. "I have my methods as an actor, so I went to the place of 'If somebody came near my children, with bad intent?'" she told Vulture. "It's a feeling without a lid, of what you would do, physically, verbally, to protect the one thing that is your greatest love."

Unfortunately, Headey also dealt with postpartum depression. She just didn't realize it at the time. She told Vulture, "I was having all these hideous post-pregnancy hormonal moments" but "that helped for playing Cersei."  

Headey is what you might call a tattooaholic. She can't get enough of them. "I always want more. It's a terrible thing," she told More (via People). "I'll be outside a tattoo shop and hear the needle and think, 'I could just get a little one that nobody would see...'"

Not that she cares what people think of her tattoos. Headey — who has a birdcage on her forearm and peonies and swallows that go from her lower back to shoulder —  said she's drawn to "dark, weird stuff, things other people would say, 'Eww, I'd never do that.'"

Normally actors have to sit in the makeup chair for hours to cover up their tattoos before filming, like Headey did while filming Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, but she found a way around that while working on Game of Thrones. She told Esquire, "You can usually get away with it by keeping your clothes on."

The pressure to be beautiful really got to Headey, and understandably so. The double standard in Hollywood is grossly unfair, as she pointed out in her interview with Net-A-Porter. "Male actors can be 'interesting', but there's a real pressure on women to be beautiful and skinny," she stated. Headey got a real sense of how superficial the industry could be in her 20s when she was auditioning regularly for parts in the United States. She said a casting director told her, "The men take these tapes home and watch them and say, 'Who would you [sleep with]?'" Yikes.

These days, Headey feels she no longer has to live up to these unfair expectations, which she said is a relief. "I'm happier now I'm older, playing women who aren't expected to be beautiful," Headey told Net-A-Porter. "That pressure has gone for me." It should be noted Headey always has been hard on her own looks. She told The Telegraph in 2014, "I think I look slightly like a horse. Hand on heart, I think I'm pretty average. ... Maybe you just don't see your own beauty." Apparently not.

After 12 years in Los Angeles, Headey packed up the fam and moved them to a village near where she grew up in England. Her reasoning? More than anything, her parents, who live minutes away. She told The New York Times, "In the last two weeks, my son has said to my dad, 'I just want to be like you, Grandpa.' That confirms to me that we did a good thing."

Headey is well aware that there are significant benefits to living in Los Angeles. And she was willing to stick around, but her kids came first. She told The New York Times, "I want my kids to have a bit of grounding." Headey never thought she'd live in LA in the first place, but, as she told The Telegraph, she felt that, while "LA offers some great living," the downside is that "it can be incredibly isolating when you spend all f***ing day in your car." She's not wrong.

There are many causes close to Lena Headey's heart, and she's not afraid to publicly speak out on their behalf and to raise awareness of certain issues. The actress appeared in an ad for PETA, encouraging the public to not support circuses that use animals, and in an ad for the equal rights-focused NOH8. She's also worked with the International Rescue Committee, particularly on the refugee crisis.

Of course, the Game of Thrones star has received pushback for taking a stance on certain hot-button issues, but that hasn't kept her from speaking her mind. She posted a blunt video on Instagram in March 2019, saying, "When I post my views, I don't think of myself as highly political. I just think of myself as a human being." She added, "If that offends you or you think actors have no place in the world to have an opinion, f*** off."