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‘Game of Thrones’ star opens up about postpartum depression

Posted at 2:14 PM, Jul 08, 2017
and last updated 2017-07-08 14:14:07-04

Lena Headey is used to waging battles as Cersei on “Game of Thrones,” but in real life she’s fought some tough fights of her own.

In a new interview in Net-A-Porter’s The Edit, Lena Headey opened up to co-star (and interviewer) Maise Williams about her battle with postpartum depression during Season 1 of the hit HBO series, ‘Game of Thrones’. Pictured is the actress on the red carpet before attending the 63rd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, California on September 18, 2011.

In a new interview in Net-A-Porter’s The Edit, the actress opened up to co-star (and interviewer) Maise Williams about her battle with postpartum depression during Season 1 of the hit HBO series.

“I was postnatally depressed but I didn’t know it,” she said, using the medical term most often used in the U.K. “I saw a doctor for the medical check, and I just burst into tears. She said I was postnatally depressed and I went, ‘Am I? Why is that?'”

Headey said she sought treatment and was helped, “but I did the first year [on ‘Game of Thrones’] in that space, figuring out motherhood and going through a weird time personally.”

“It was tricky,” she said.

Headey and Williams were chatting in support of the upcoming penultimate season of “Game of Thrones.”

HBO on Friday released new — incredibly vague — descriptions for the first three episodes of the new season, which will be titled “Dragonstone,” “Stormborn,” and “The Queen’s Justice.”

The network teased that the premiere would see Cersei, who at the end of last season ascended to the Iron Throne, try “to even the odds.”

When asked by Williams who she would like to see on the Iron Throne at the series’ end, Headey replied: “I think she’s already sitting there, isn’t she?”

“Game of Thrones” debuts July 16.