Lena Headey: I told Weinstein where to go after hotel scare

Lena Headey says she told Harvey Weinstein where to go after two disturbing encounters in the mid-2000s, and that a failed hotel keycard stopped what she feared could have been far worse. She says she never got another Miramax role and felt a decade of possibilities disappeared. The Game of Thrones star shared the account in a new Guardian look-back, with further detail also reported from a Radio Times interview covered by other outlets.

Key Takeaways

• Lena Headey says Weinstein tried to kiss her while they walked in Venice during promotion for The Brothers Grimm (2005); she rejected him and later received flowers with an apology.
• About six months later, she says he marched her toward his hotel room after a breakfast invitation framed around scripts; his keycard would not open the door.
• She told the Guardian she was “lucky” nothing worse happened, but believed she was blacklisted and never got another Miramax film.
• Headey is promoting Intimacy, an eight-part BBC Sounds and Radio 4 comedy audio drama she writes, directs, and stars in.

What did Lena Headey say happened with Harvey Weinstein?

In The Guardian, Headey wrote that Weinstein “didn’t get his hands on me because his keycard didn’t work for the hotel room he had taken me to.” She described herself as young, cocky, and drunk in their first encounter and said that when she realized what was happening she “essentially told him to fuck himself.”

Reporting on a Radio Times interview, The Times of India and Irish Star describe two encounters. During Venice promotion for The Brothers Grimm, she said Weinstein tried to kiss her on a walk. “I told him to get lost,” she recalled, adding she thought, “You’re 52.” Flowers and an apology followed the next day, according to those accounts.

Roughly six months later, she said a breakfast meeting led to an invitation upstairs for scripts. In the lift, she said her “whole body shut down,” and she told him she had “no interest” in more than friendship. She said he “marched” her to the room; after the keycard failed repeatedly, he took her downstairs and said, “Never say anything to anybody.” She said she cried in her car afterward.

Why does Lena Headey say a decade of possibilities disappeared?

Headey told the Guardian that while she was fortunate nothing worse happened, she “didn’t ever get another Miramax film after that.” She wrote: “A decade and a half of possibilities disappeared. I felt I was blacklisted because I refused to do what he wanted.” Parallel reporting quotes her saying he never offered her a role in any of his films again.

Those outlets also cite her claim that Weinstein told her early in her career to get her teeth straightened and pressured her to get Botox on her forehead while she was still in her 20s. Weinstein is described in that coverage as a convicted sex offender held at Rikers Island in New York.

How is this tied to her career and new BBC project?

Headey, who played Cersei Lannister on Game of Thrones from 2011 to 2019 and earned five Emmy nominations, framed the memoir as part of a wider look at fame, aging, and protecting her daughter. She is also discussing Hollywood’s power imbalance while promoting Intimacy for BBC Sounds and Radio 4.

For more celebrity news roundups, see our Celebrity Breaking News hub. Headey’s Guardian piece also covers her feral childhood, early film debut in Waterland (1992), and why she says she does not miss being leered at as she gets older.