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Exclusive Interview: Lena Headey is one bad muther on ‘Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles‘
By Carlos Delgado
Source: iF Magazine
The actress talks about flexing her acting and action muscles on the second season of Fox’s sci-fi series
Stepping into the role of Sarah Connor, the tough as nails heroine from the Terminator series, takes an actor who is very sure of herself. Fortunately, FOX found such an actor in one Lena Headey, star of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. iF Magazine recently caught up with Lena and chatted with her about filling some big shoes, season two and working with her colleagues.
iF MAGAZINE: Now that Terminator is in its second season, do you feel like you have command of the role of Sarah Connor?
LENA HEADEY: You know I have confidence in myself as an actor. It’s like a piece of art: either you love it or you hate it. And I do what I do and I really enjoy playing Sarah and that’s all I do. I can’t make a science of it. It comes from your gut and your heart and that’s what I let out there.
iF: What keeps you confident?
LENA: You know, it’s different on certain days. I mean, things like this I hate and are quite terrifying. I think confidence in anybody comes from acceptance. I think you get to a point in your life where you have to stop striving to be something that you really truly are not. I think acceptance itself is vital.
iF: When did you learn this? As a youngster or later on in life?
LENA: No. I wish I had. I’d say at thirty-years old I learned that. It was like a door opened in my mind and I was like, “Oh, it’s okay.” I think thirty is a marker.
iF: Were you nervous stepping into the role of Sarah Connor?
LENA: No not at all. It’s creating something, you know what I mean? It’s creating something for entertainment. I’m sure Linda was done with the role anyway. So there was no sort of apprehension.
iF: What’s it like working with Thomas Dekker who plays your son John Connor on the show?
LENA: Well I love Thomas. He’s great. And I think that he’s a great actor. I’m so thankful to act with [him]. You know we have a lot of hard stuff to do and not a lot of time to do it. Yet, it’s emotional, it’s informative and there’s all this stuff. I love working with him as an actor and also he’s a great young director. It helps to be an actor if you’re going to sit behind the camera, because you have to have some empathy as to what somebody’s going through sitting there. And he really does, which I love.
iF: Is it tough taking direction from him being that you play his mother on the show?
LENA: No not at all. He’s totally my equal. That’s just on the TV show. He’s way smarter than I am.
iF: So none of that carries over when you start filming?
LENA: No. We’re pretty good. The camera rolls and we jump into John and Sarah and then we’re ourselves. It’s like we got it down. Eighteen hours a day, it comes quickly.
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