Lena Headey plays the badass Cersei Lannister on the hit HBO series Game of Thrones. In the programme she's stoic and virtually never shows her true emotions. It's the type of role that makes it easy to forget that, in real life, she's a normal person with normal feelings.
The 44-year-old has now come forward to talk about two encounters with Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein that left her in tears. In a series of photos posted to Twitter, Lena details what went down when she met the man who has been accused of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment.
She says the first time she met Weinstein was at The Venice Film Festival, where The Brothers Grimm was showing. The producer asked her to go down to the water for a chat and as they got there, he made a 'suggestive comment' and a 'gesture', which 'genuinely shocked' her. After politely telling him off, Lena says: "I was never in any other Miramax film."
Credit: PA
But the more harrowing occasion happened years later when she was in LA and was asked to have breakfast with the 65-year-old. She says: "I had always carried the thought that he'd never try anything with me again, not after I'd laughed and said never in a million years. I believed that he respected my boundary and maybe he wanted to talk about potential work.
"He asked me to meet for breakfast. We ate breakfast, we talked about films, filmmaking. He asked me a few questions about the state of my love life. I shifted the conversation back to something less personal.
"Then he went to the loo. He came back and said, 'Let's go up to the room, I want to give you a script.' We walked to the lift and the energy shifted, my whole body went into high alert, the lift was going up and I said to Harvey, 'I'm not interested in anything other than work. Please don't think I got in here with you for any other reason, nothing is going to happen.'
"I don't know what possessed me to speak out at that moment, only that I had such a strong sense of 'don't come near me'.
"He was silent after I spoke, furious.
Credit: PA
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"We got out of the lift and walked to his room. His hand was on my back, he was marching me forward, not a word, I felt completely powerless, he tried his key card and it didn't work, then he got really angry.
"He walked me back to the lift, through the hotel to the valet, by grabbing and holding tightly to the back of my arm, he paid for my car and whispered in my ear, 'Don't tell anyone about this, not your manager, not your agent.'
"I got into my car and I cried."
Ms Headey joins more than 40 women who have accused him of misconduct, including Angelina Jolie, Rose McGowan, Cara Delevingne and Lauren Holly. Despite all the mounting claims, Weinstein has denied all non-consensual relationships.
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As a result of the allegations, he was fired as chairman from The Weinstein Company studio and expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who present the Oscar awards.
These are just some of the women who have accused Harvey Weinstein of misconduct. Credit: PA
The allegations have seen dozens of people break their silence over similar circumstances. Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence recently shared her experience, saying: "A female producer had me do a nude line-up with about five women who were much, much, thinner than me.
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"We are stood side-by-side with only tape on covering our privates. After that degrading and humiliating line-up, the female producer told me I should use the naked photos of myself as inspiration for my diet."
But it's not only women coming forward, as Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Terry Crews revealed his harrowing encounter with a powerful Hollywood executive. In a Twitter post, he said: "This whole thing with Harvey Weinstein is giving me PTSD. Why? Because this kind of thing happened to ME. My wife [and] I were at a Hollywood function last year [and] a high level Hollywood executive came over 2 me and groped my privates.
"Jumping back, I said, 'What are you doing?!' My wife saw everything [and] we looked at him like he was crazy. He just grinned like a jerk.
"I was going to kick his ass right then - but I thought twice about how the whole thing would appear. '240 lbs black man stomps out Hollywood honcho' would be the headline the next day."
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The ongoing scandal has provided victims a platform to share their horrible experiences, and has caused a conversation to open up in Tinseltown about how attitudes need to change.
Featured Image Credit: HBO/Game of ThronesTopics: World News, Harvey Weinstein, US News, Game of Thrones