Following a terrific run as the hateful Cersei Lannister in HBO's Game of Thrones, there was a lot of excitement among fantasy fans when we first learned of plans for Lena Headey to appear in Thor: Love and Thunder.
The 2022 movie was something of a tonal mess, disappointing those who had been looking forward to a worthy take on characters like the Mighty Thor and Gorr the God Butcher. Even Chris Hemsworth has said the whole thing was too silly, vowing to bring the Odinson more in line with the comics when he returns in Avengers: Doomsday this December.
In an interview with ScreenRant, Headey finally revealed her unseen Thor: Love and Thunder role. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't sound like filmmaker Taika Waititi had anything serious planned for the actress.
Explaining that she was going to be part of a coven of witches that included Angus Sampson (The Lincoln Lawyer) and Da'Vine Joy Randolph (Only Murders in the Building), Heady had plenty of good things to say about the experience, despite being left on the cutting room floor.
"I wasn't in it, but I worked on it. There were three of us. We were [a] coven of witches. I think it was Taika's invention, and they were kind of Thor's guide in the underworld, but they were very, very funny and kind of insane," she recalled. "I think there was this whole story of like, 'They got fired,' when actually it was just like, 'What are they doing here?'"
"But I think the intention was to find this land for them to have their own adventures. It was myself, Angus Sampson, and Da'Vine Joy, so it was quite a trio of madness," Headey continued. "We were witches. Oh, she's a delight. She is a joy. She is a divine joy. So yeah, bummer that we didn't make the cut."
It seems Headey, Sampson, and Randolph were all cast as original creations, meaning that these witches weren't based on anyone from the comics. The sequence was never released as a deleted scene, which isn't overly surprising based on past comments from Waititi.
"If you ask any of those actors who were cut out — Jeff Goldblum, Lena Headey, Peter Dinklage — they all understand how it works," the filmmaker previously said of Thor: Love and Thunder's many cut cameos. "They have been in the game long enough. But that’s just the way I look at things."
"I’m not going to give you a moment because this is my way of telling you, like, people say, 'I can’t wait for the deleted scenes with those actors.' I don’t want people to see the deleted scenes because they’re deleted for a reason: They aren’t good enough. The scenes were not in the movie and that’s it."
Despite mixed reviews, Thor: Love and Thunder grossed $760.9 million at the worldwide box office, which wasn't that far behind Thor: Ragnarok's $865 million haul (and even a drop of over $100 million was a good result in the post-pandemic era).
A new Thor movie is expected to follow Avengers: Doomsday, but Waititi won't be back to direct. There's currently no word on whether Marvel Studios is eyeing a creative team for the sequel, and if so, how far into development the project is.