Biography

Lena Headey is a Bermudian-British actress. Headey is best known for her role as "Cersei Lannister" in Game of Thrones (2011) (2011-2019) and Les Frères Grimm (2005), Possession (2002), and Les vestiges du jour (1993). Headey stars as "Queen Gorgo," a heroic Spartan woman in the period film, 300 (2006), by director Zack Snyder.

Headey was born in Hamilton, Bermuda, to British parents Sue and John Headey. Her father, a Yorkshire police cadet, was stationed in the Bermuda Police Service. She was raised there until age five, when her family returned to England. She was brought up in Yorkshire before moving to London in her teens. Headey had not gone to drama school before she became an actress. At the age of seventeen, Headey's performance in a one-off show in the company of six school friends caught the attention of a casting agent, who took a photo and asked her to audition. Eventually, Headey was cast in Waterland (1992), which became her big-screen debut. She honed her natural acting talent while filming and also took archery classes and horse training. She also took boxing classes in clubs in south London, where a former boxer had been teaching her to spar. During her film career, spanning over 15 years, Headey has shown her range in a variety of roles, playing characters from Amazon-type warriors and action-minded women in La Crypte (2005) and Les Frères Grimm (2005), to a lesbian florist in Imagine Me & You (2005).

Headey's film career has taken her all over the world. She was in India for the filming of Le Livre de la jungle (1994), then in St. Petersburg, Russia, for filming Onegin (1999), and in Norway for filming of Aberdeen (2000). In 2005 Headey was filming in Romania and in Mexico, then spent four months in Prague, Czech Republic, where a forest was designed and built for filming Les Frères Grimm (2005), with Matt Damon and Heath Ledger. During 2006 Headey was in Canada for the filming of 300 (2006), then went to locations in Bulgaria for shooting Contractor (2007), and Germany and in Czech Republic for the filming of Baron Rouge (2008).

She also played Gina McVey in the horror thriller The Broken (2008), and Elizabeth in Tell Tale (2009). In addition to her film-work, Heady appeared as Sarah Connor in a TV spin-off of the popular "Terminator" film franchise, the FOX's television series Terminator: Les chroniques de Sarah Connor (2008).

Outside of her acting profession, Headey continued taking boxing lessons in London. She is a vegetarian and also remains loyal to yoga, which she discovered during her work in India. She has never been back to her birthplace in Bermuda; she shares her time between her homes in London, England, and Los Angeles, California.

- IMDb mini biography by: Steve Shelokhonov