Lena Headey
I hate being looked at. Can't stand it. I know, I know - I picked the wrong career. I should have been a doctor. If you play certain parts you have this nice face painted on you, and then you have feel as if you have a responsibility to this idea of being beautiful. I hate that about our business.Collection: Business
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.Collection: Independence
Maybe you just don't see your own beauty.Collection: Beauty
Nothing I do is by design. It's always the result of a happy accident. I didn't have a career plan. It has just become the way it is. It's all good fun.Collection: Design
I've never directed before, so I need to make sure that people know that I can. The movie that I've written, 'The Sophisticates,' is a... small ensemble comedy and I hope it's charming and funny.Collection: Funny
I took up boxing as a fitness thing. I got obsessed, and I would go every day when I wasn't working. It's just an insane sport when you get into it.Collection: Fitness
I've got quite a big gay following. I played a lesbian prostitute in the TV series 'Band Of Gold' but I think my following really grew when I played one in the film 'Imagine Me & You,' with Piper Perabo.
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.
Sometimes it's a bizarre, fairly cold, and horrifying thing to be a parent.
I miss that London thing of walking outside and bumping into mates and going, 'Do you want to get a pint?'
I find 'Chainsaw' to be a very relaxing film.
I always have scarves handy; they're my indulgence. I buy them at an L.A. shop called Lost & Found. I'll spray one with loads of my Byredo Gypsy Water perfume, put it on and be like, 'Ah, this feels good.'
Getting the role in '300' saved me. I'd been out of work for 11 months after 'The Brothers Grimm.' Once the film came out and didn't do so well, the director Terry Gilliam blamed me for absolutely everything. It was pretty appalling, and I had started to wonder if I'd ever get another job again when I was asked to audition for '300.'
I carry about eight lip balms: Burt's Bees, Rosebud Salve, Eos.
I'm a tomboy. I used to get into a lot of fights. Don't know why - self-expression, I guess.
There is something in the act of having tattoos done that I love. It can be quite addictive. I've got a few on my back because my friend is an artist, and a few on my arms. Every time I pass a tattoo parlour, I think, 'Maybe just a tiny one.'
There's a perceived inverse relation between looks and talent. Look at Charlize Theron - she made herself ugly for 'Monster' and suddenly everyone said 'she's a genius.' It shouldn't be like that.
With fantasy and sci-fi, it's based in a real fandom. You're presenting to experts, and their source material is really important to them. They'll come up and ask: 'so when you turned your head slightly in that scene, what were you thinking?'
I'm 40 next year and I'm very well aware that where I am now, it becomes a bit of a wilderness for actresses.
There's nothing more exciting for an actor than a chance to lose, to be someone who has lost - especially if it's someone who starts off with a veneer of control. To be broken is wonderful.
'Lost Boys' is one of my all-time faves. I just thought it would be great to be a vampire. I remember this movie called 'Once Bitten,' which is about an '80s sort of power girl who became a vampire and was really, like, sexy. Hair like she was from 'Dallas,' shoulder pads, big earrings.
I love being physical, but I am extreme either way. I can be superfit. And then I can be really lazy and ignore everything.
I am very much a seat-of-the-pants actor. I will prepare when I have to. But I like being unprepared.
I'm sort of like a T. rex in the world of female actresses. Every time a job is finished, I look at my car and think, 'Could I live in it?'
Does our culture have a need for violence? I don't know. I guess it's a personal thing.
For me, horror movies are a real escape.
I think I cry when I'm angry. I let it go that way.
I look at someone like Kathryn Bigelow, and I have so much admiration. She's playing in the boy's sandpit, and winning.
As a teenager I was clinically depressed. Although I had lots of friends, I found those years very difficult.
I was obsessed with vampires when I was 13 or 14.
Shooting guns is not something I would do in my spare time. I really don't understand why Americans can purchase guns so easily and why they use them for sporting purposes.
I don't think you should feel guilty about pleasure. Defeats the purpose.
I worked in Tesco's staff canteen because I fancied a boy on the tills. I served him his lunch in a hairnet and tan tights. Not just that, of course - I had a lovely white onesie.
It's amazing the things that you cry at. I cry when I smell my son's hair in the morning. We have a moment of peace and I'll be like, 'Ahhhh! How can you love this much?'
That scene in 'The Purge' where my kids, Mary's kids, are in danger was really crazy for me, because I suddenly... I have my methods as an actor, so I went to the place of 'If somebody came near my children, with bad intent?'
It's a feeling without a lid, of what you would do, physically, verbally, to protect the one thing that is your greatest love.
I've said from day one that I've got no problem with nudity. I've done it throughout my career.
I could quite happily run a florist or a bake shop.
Cersei in 'Game of Thrones' is quite solid and stiff.
There is always that thought that you might get stuck with a character. But there's always the notion that every character is always evolving.
I was never one of the cool kids who read '2000 AD.'
'Dredd' was a weird little out-of-the-blue thing for me.
People who never get anxious always amaze me. The world could be breaking up, and they're saying, 'Everything's fine!'
Getting older and having kids, you learn how to become less serious about it all.
Nothing's ever allowed to just be entertaining. We have to talk about it.
A lady of a certain age must keep her top on. That's what I feel.
I'm sad I'm not in 'The Purge 2.'
If I was into politics, I would be rich.
I do what I do; I can't control who thinks what.
I drink a lot of coffee.