We’ve gotten used to seeing Lena Headey as the blonde-tressed, scheming Cersei Lannister on Game Of Thrones, but later this year she’ll crop up as a very different, yet similarly steely female character in Dredd. And now she’s talked up the movie to the LA Times’ Hero Complex column.
Dredd promises to restore the character to the grittier, meaner tone originated in 2000 AD and while there has been recent troubling buzz about editing room disputes and credit changes – buzz which was later shot down – we haven’t heard that many people talking about it. Still, it appears that Headey thinks it’ll be impressive on screen.
“The world feels really British, and I don’t know if that’s because it’s so dirty and dark,” Headey says. “And it’s... violent. Just in terms of gunplay, they’re not afraid to show blood and gunshot wounds. And it’s set up in this concrete sort of shanty town — it’s shanty but they’re blocks — concrete favelas.”
Sounds more Dredd-like already. And as for Ma-Ma, who was originally conceived as an older woman, but aged down when Headey impressed the likes of writer-producer Alex Garland, she’s definitely got a unique take on her...
“I think of her like an old Great White shark who is just waiting for someone bigger and stronger to show up and kill her,” Headey says. “She’s ready for it. In fact, she can’t wait for it to happen. And yet no-one can get the job done. She’s an addict, so she’s dead in that way, but that last knock just hasn’t come. This big, fat, scarred shark moving through the sea and everyone flees and she’s like, ‘Will someone just have the balls to do it? Please?‘”
With Karl Urban as the gun-toting anti-hero and Olivia Thirlby as rookie Cassandra Anderson, Dredd is out here on September 7. For more from Headey, head over to the LA Times site.