Lena Headey gave a wide-ranging interview with The Telegraph and opened up on her experiences in Hollywood with nudity and predatory men. The “Game of Thrones” Emmy nominee accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment in 2017, claiming he made suggestive comments to her at the Venice Film Festival when they were promoting “The Brothers Grimm.” Years later, Weinstein allegedly invited Headey to his hotel to show her a script.
“We walked to the lift and the energy shifted,” Headey once explained of the encounter. “My whole body went into high alert. The lift was going up and I said to Harvey, ‘I’m not interested in anything other than work, please don’t think I got in here with your any other reason, nothing is going to happen.’ I don’t know what possessed me to speak out at that moment, only that I had such a strong sense of ‘don’t come near me.’”
Speaking to The Telegraph, Headey said: “The weird protection that we offer predatory men in the business because of the disproportionate power they wield set against the need among vulnerable actresses to work to put food on the table to get the job – it makes me very angry. A job can be completely soured by one person who, for some reason, is allowed to get away with it. It was only when the #MeToo movement erupted [in 2017] that we realized – oh, this is everywhere… I think most young women I speak to now in this business are so savvy. The attitude today is, ‘I’m not fucing doing that’.”
