While Lena Headey is arguably best known for playing Cersei Lannister across the entirety of Game of Thrones, the actress also has geek/franchise cred from projects like 300, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance and Masters of the Universe: Revelation. Well, it turns out that she was also supposed to make her Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in Thor: Love and Thunder. While that didn’t end up happening, Headey is now caught up in a new lawsuit that involves the upcoming Marvel movie.
Lena Headey is being sued for close to $1.5 million by her former U.K. agency Troika over unpaid commission fees tied to various projects, including Thor: Love and Thunder. As reported by Variety, Troika, which has been known as YMU since 2020, claims that Headey owes the agency around $500,000, i.e. around 7% of her fee, for what she earned on Love and Thunder. The agency also alleges that Headey owes it $300,000 for the upcoming movie 9 Bullets that she starred in with Sam Worthington, and $650,000 for a Showtime series that was in development called Rita that never progressed past the pilot.
As far as Thor: Love and Thunder goes, it’s been confirmed that Lena Headey does not appear in the theatrical cut, although no details about her character have been revealed to the public. Nevertheless, Troika/YMU is seeking an account of commission fees owed, an order for Headey to pay the fees, damages for breach of contract, interest and reimbursement of legal fees for the projects mentioned. Headey joined Troika in 2005 and left in March 2020, a few months after Michael Duff, one of Troika’s co-founders and Headey’s agent, departed the agency.
For her part, Lena Headey claims that she never signed any contracts with Troika nor Michael Duff, and that her arrangements with both parties was through an oral agreement she made with Duff in the late ‘90s when he was at Lou Carl Associates. Headey’s filings also state that she was never exclusively with Troika, as she’s represented by CAA in the United States. The actress also disputes that Troika has any claim to commissions for Thor: Love and Thunder (which director/co-writer Taika Waititi apparently approached her directly for) and 9 Bullets, while as far as Rita is concerned, she only received $325,00 for the pilot, and Troika/YMU in turn was paid $22,750.
We’ll just have to wait and see how this legal saga turns out for Lena Headey, though as far as Thor: Love and Thunder goes, this is a lot of trouble to come the actress’ way for a movie where her scenes ended being cut. But editing is an integral aspect of the filmmaking process, and it’s inevitable that certain moments shot will end up on the cutting room floor. What we can count on seeing in the final product is Chris Hemsworth’s Thor Odinson teaming up with folks like Natalie Portman’s Jame Foster (who’s now The Mighty Thor), Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie and Taika Waititi’s Korg to battle Christian Bale’s Gorr the God Butcher. Love and Thunder also marks the MCU’s introduction of Marvel’s Olympian mythology, with Russell Crowe appearing as Zeus.
Thor: Love and Thunder opens to the public on July 8, and fingers cross that whenever the movie arrives on home media and to Disney+ subscribers, Lena Headey’s deleted material is included among the extras. Along with 9 Bullets’ forthcoming release, Headey is also starring in the HBO miniseries The White House Plumbers as Dorothy Hunt.
