Lena Headey names her five favourite movies of all time
The actor Lena Headey is likely best known for portraying Cersei Lannister in the widely-celebrated fantasy TV show Game of Thrones, although she has also appeared in a number of acclaimed films, including The Remains of the Day, Ripley’s Game and Mrs Dalloway.
Offering a peek behind the curtain during a new feature with Rotten Tomatoes, Headey picked out her five favourite films of all time. First up for Headey is Danny Boyle’s iconic 1996 film Trainspotting, based on Irvine Welsh’s book of the same name. Headey claims to have seen it when she was first getting into acting, saying: “I just think it was the peak of what we did really well here, with low budgets and sort of dynamic, ferocious films. Kind of ballsy and just sort of out there. It didn’t adhere to any rules of cinema. I just love the energy of that film, the music”.
Moving 20 years on from Trainspotting, Headey picks out the romantic drama God’s Own Country, which details the growing bond between a Yorkshire sheep farmer and a Romanian migrant worker. Headey said of Francis Lee’s directorial debut, commenting: “It just moves me so much, the relationship between the boys and sort of beautiful bleak countryside and that nugget of joy that they found. I loved it, I loved it.”
Another contemporary cinematic treat that Headey admires is 2019’s Honey Boy. Shia LeBeouf wrote the film’s screenplay, based on his own experience as a child actor, and Headey said: “Everything about that film was gorgeous. That scene between Noah Jupe and FKA Twigs – you know, that sort of moment when they’re in the room? In someone else’s hands, it would have been a very difficult thing, I think, but that tenderness made me weep from a place that I don’t think I felt before watching a film.”
Going way back to the 1970s, Headey selects John Cassavetes’ excellent A Woman Under the Influence, which she claims is one of her “eternal favourites”. The film starred Cassavetes’ wife, Gena Rowlands as a severely stressed out woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown, while Peter Falk played her sometimes abusive husband.
Headey said: “That’s kind of the centre of everything for me. It’s such beautiful, simple filmmaking. I first saw it about ten years ago, maybe. It just really struck something in me that I thought, ‘My god, that just looks like such a great acting piece’. It allows the actors to do what they do. They were obviously given room by Cassavetes just to be brilliant.”
Lena Headey’s favourite films:
- Trainspotting (Danny Boyle, 1996)
- God’s Own Country (Francis Lee, 2017)
- Honey Boy (Alma Har’el, 2019)
- A Woman Under the Influence (John Cassavetes, 1974)
- The Selfish Giant (Clio Barnard, 2013)
Finally, Headey rounds off her favourite films list with Clio Barnard’s 2013 film The Selfish Giant, which was inspired by the Oscar Wilde story of the same name. Headey said: “That’s an incredible piece of filmmaking, too. I think it’s made with non-actors, kids that are not actors, which should be a disaster, and it’s absolutely like searingly brilliant. It’s about kids growing up in poverty finding their way through and their friendships. It’s just a blinding piece of film.”
