2 ‘Game of Thrones’ Stars Have Played the Same Character in ‘The Terminator’ Franchise
Game of Thrones has been one of the biggest and most popular TV shows in the world, and there have been many reasons for that. Something that almost every Game of Thrones fans agree on, however, is that the acting on the show is usually really great.
Unsurprisingly, Game of Thrones has nabbed many Emmy nominations for acting and it’s won a handful, too. As a result, the cast on the show was given very handsome salaries. But, at the same time, their careers have also skyrocketed. Here’s a look at how both Lena Headey and Emilia Clarke ended up playing Sarah Connor in The Terminator franchise.
What ‘Game of Thrones’ is about
In Game of Thrones, there were dozens of characters and multiple teams, and all of them wanted to win control of the throne. There was the fan-favorite Starks in the North, there were the evil and cunning Lannisters in the capital, and there was Daenerys Targaryen with her dragons in the East. There were plenty more teams, but those were the three major players in the show.
Much of the show is about how each team is trying to get ahead of the other team in order to win the throne, so naturally, each team needed a leader. The leader of the Starks changed a lot but the leaders of the other two major teams remained pretty consistent for most of the show. Cersei Lannister was the leader of her team, and Daenerys Targaryen, or Dany, was the leader of hers.
A look at Cersei Lannister and Daenerys Targaryen
Cersei, played by Headey, is one of the evilest characters in the show. Simply said, she does a lot of cruel things in order to gain power in the world. That said, she’s not completely evil, and she’s complex in her own ways. This is what’s allowed her to survive and thrive for so long, but it’s also made her one of those villains that fans just love to hate.
Dany, who’s played by Clarke, is the opposite, for the most part. Dany has a rough story, since her brother sold her away when she was young and she was left to fend for herself not long after. But she has dragons, and they, along with the people who follow her, have allowed her to do what she wants.
For the most part, that’s liberating slaves and punishing people who’ve done bad things in the world. Unsurprisingly, Dany is a fan-favorite character.
Lena Headey and Emilia Clarke both played Sarah Connor
Like Mental Floss said, a fun fact about these two great actresses is the fact that they’ve both played Sarah Connor in The Terminator franchise. That said, they didn’t play Sarah Connor at the same time, and they played Sarah Connor in different mediums, too.
Headey played Sarah Connor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which was a TV show that aired for two seasons starting in 2008. Unfortunately for Headey, the show was canceled after a little more than 30 episodes. That said, fortunately for her, she was cast as Cersei not long after this show was canceled.
On the other hand, after the success of Game of Thrones, pretty much every actor in the show started getting more and more work outside of the show. In Clarke’s case, she got the gig of playing Sarah Connor in Terminator Genisys, which is a 2015 film that was supposed to be a reboot of the franchise.
Terminator Genisys didn’t do badly at the box office, but it wasn’t a smash hit, either. Furthermore, Clarke won’t be doing any sequels since the original Sarah Connor, who’s played by Linda Hamilton, returned to the role in the sequel.
