Ironically, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Lena Headey felt like they were kissing a sibling during some of Cersei and Jaime's more steamy scenes. Only they weren't into it as much as their incestuous Game of Thrones counterparts.
It's only been ten years since the pilot premiered, yet we still can't believe our eyes when we watch the Lannister siblings going at it like star-crossed lovers, but that's hardly the worst thing anyone did on the show. While we wish we could have changed many details in Game of Thrones, it would have been especially satisfying to see Jaime kill Cersei in season eight. But instead, they tragically died together in what was one of their sweeter moments.
While Cersei and Jaime were having their on-again-off-again brother/sister relationship throughout the series, Coster-Waldau and Headey were just friends, despite having great chemistry on-screen. They became brother and sister, but they didn't quite take it as far as their characters.
But do they keep in touch? Here's what we know about their relationship.
They Didn't Like Kissing
Now that GOT is over, we miss Headey, Coster-Waldau, and the rest of the gang, even though some were happier than others to finally be done with the show. Do the cast members miss it as much as we do?
Headey and Coster-Waldau seem to, if only because they don't get to see each other as much. But they probably don't miss having to kiss each other. In speaking to Red Bulletin in 2016, Coster-Waldau was asked which scenes, past or present, were hard for him to film. He said there were many, but the incest scenes were some of the hardest, and apparently, Headey agrees.
"Lena Headey is brilliant as Cersei… We know each other so well now that it feels weird every time when we have to do a kissing scene," he said. "So as soon as they yell cut, we make faces of disgust, not seriously. But it does feel a bit wrong."
One scene between the twin-cestuous characters was harder to film out of all the rest, however. Remember that really graphic sex scene between them in season four during Joffrey's funeral? Fans dubbed it the "r**e-cest" scene.
Both Headey and Coster-Waldau had a lot to say about the scene, even though they were both hesitant to talk about it at first. They agree it was never meant to be a r**e.
"It’s that terrible thing as a woman—talking about something as horrendous as r**e and dismissing it, which I’m not," Headey told Entertainment Weekly. "But we never discussed it as that. It was a woman in grief for her dead child, and the father of the child—who happens to be her brother—who never really acknowledged the children is standing with her. We’ve all experienced grief. There’s a moment of wanting to fill a void, and that is often very visceral, physical. That, for me, is where she was at. There was an emotional block, and [her brother] was just a bit of a drug for her."
Meanwhile, Coster-Waldau said, "I’ve spoken to a lot of people [privately] about this. I haven’t spoken to the people who got the most upset because they were online. Most people I spoke to got from the scene what we were trying to show—a very complicated relationship and two people in desperate need for each other. All these emotions going through them, it was never intended to be something where he forced—it wasn’t a r**e, and it was never intended to be. But it’s one of those things where you can’t [publicly] say ‘it wasn’t r**e,’ because then everybody goes, ‘How can you say it wasn’t r**e?!’ But that was definitely not the intention."
Even though most of their scenes were hard to film, at least they had each other through it all. They bonded over GOT.
They Bonded Behind-The-Scenes
During the last season of GOT, both Headey and Coster-Waldau shared many behind-the-scenes throwbacks of their time on set.
In November 2019, Headey posted a picture of the pair on set, with the caption, "Best Bro." She also shared a series of videos of them getting up to mischief as well. There was a hilarious photo of Headey and Coster -Waldau wearing head caps.
"When @nikolajwilliamcw and I wore jellyfish ... I f**king love you ya big weirdo," she wrote. She also shared a piece of fanart she found and liked of Coster-Waldau once.
Finally, Headey posted a tribute to her brothers from other mothers, Coster-Waldau and Peter Dinklage, and thanked them for everything. "And that was that... what a night .. my brothers from others mothers... or the same mothers .. whatever it’s confusing .. I love you and couldn’t have done this without you both, no one more daft, kind, or supportive... I will cherish all of it. @nikolajwilliamcw #peterdinklage."
Coster-Waldau has also posted some hilarious behind-the-scenes photos of the pair messing around as well. He posted a picture of Headey posing with Jaime's gold hand that they filled with dried fruit.
"@iamlenaheadey I finally got our ‘fruity hand of Queen’ into Production. Should be on Amazon anytime now," he wrote.
During season eight, he wrote, "The best, sweetest most wonderful sister from another mother @iamlenaheadey. That was a fun decade," next to a picture of the pair pulling funny faces.
So we can assume that Headey and Coster-Waldau will be life-long friends. They went through a lot giving us one of the best television shows, and they'll continue to support each other. But that's as far as they go. There's no incest in this brother-sister relationship.