Lena Headey Reportedly Cut From ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’
For a few months, there have been some rumors circling around about Game of Thrones actress Lena Headey appearing in the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder. Now, apparently, there was some veracity to them, though her role has been cut out from the final film.
In March 2021, a long list of updates on future Marvel projects appeared on a 4chan forum. It included some stuff that has since panned out (from movies like Eternals, and Shang-Chi, as well as other news like Delroy Lindo being in talks for Blade, or Ryan Reynolds wanting Shawn Levy to direct Deadpool 3), but also stuff that didn’t pan out, like Clea not being in Doctor Strange 2, or the lineup of the Sinister Six in Spider-Man: No Way Home. That list also included Lena Headey playing Valkyrie’s Queen in Thor: Love and Thunder. Jeff Goldblum’s Grandmaster was also supposedly returning, and from a recent interview with Christian Bale, we know that this was the case, though once again, his role was cut out.
That wasn’t the only time Headey’s name has been tied to the MCU. Insider Daniel Richtman apparently said as much on his Patreon, and other scoopers have backed it up since then as well. Now, Variety is confirming that Headey was part of the shoot for Thor: Love and Thunder, but she has been cut out from the final film.
Tessa Thompson as King Valkyrie in Marvel Studios’ THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER. Photo by Jasin Boland. ©Marvel Studios 2022. All Rights Reserved.
Moreover, her former U.K. agency Troika is suing the actress over unpaid $1.5M in commission fees related to a series of projects, including the new Marvel movie. They are claiming that Headey owes them $500,000 (that is, 7% of her fee) for her earnings on Taika Waititi’s film. The actress is arguing that Troika was not an intermediary in the negotiations with Marvel, as Waititi himself approached her directly.
Variety has not disclosed which character Lena Headey played in the film, but given everything we’ve heard from the film, it’s no surprise that she was cut. Waititi has said that his first assembly cut was four hours long, and it was barely unwatchable as a full-fledged movie — he said that there were four or five times where it just gave up on the story and went off into a 10-15 minute tangent of just jokes. Christian Bale also said in an interview that Peter Dinklage and Jeff Goldblum had filmed stuff for the movie, though their scenes were ultimately cut.
At some point in the next few weeks, we’ll probably get some clarification about all of these deleted scenes, much like we did with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. While there is still a lot that we don’t know about the many changes that Sam Raimi made to the final film, we have a pretty good idea of how it morphed into the movie that premiered in theaters two months ago, from what we’ve been able to collect from interviews and leaks. It’s also unknown if we’ll ever get to see these deleted scenes, but since there is already some hype for them, it’s possible Disney will decide to release them on Disney Plus at some point.
Thor: Love and Thunder will premiere in theaters next week, on July 8. Check out a new featurette focused on Taika Waititi that was released recently:
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
