Dormer makes bald statement of honesty
TORONTO — Natalie Dormer says she would have shaved her entire head for a role in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1.
Luckily, the Game of Thrones actress only had to buzz half her long locks to play Cressida in the latest chapter of the hit dystopian fantasy series.
“It’s funny how being an actor forces you to do things or go places that you wouldn’t ordinarily,” the 32-year-old English actress said. “You learn something about yourself and ultimately I found it quite liberating, to be honest.”
Cressida is a director who films Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) in an effort to encourage strength and morale among the rebels. She and her camera crew become constant companions of Katniss as she leads the rebellion against The Capitol.
Dormer admitted she felt nervous about shaving half her head, but once she had done the deed she felt surprisingly free.
“Women have a lot of ... attitudes enforced in us about our sense of attractiveness being bound up in long, flowing, Hollywood kind of hair. So it’s kind of liberating to play a woman who is all about her profession,” she said.
“The beauty of The Hunger Games and also Game of Thrones, in fairness, both projects have really complex, three-dimensional, contradictory, strong women ... The writing of female characters is extraordinary and equal to the men.”
Dormer is known to fans of the HBO series as Margaery Tyrell, the politically cunning and ambitious wife of King Joffrey Baratheon. The actress also portrayed Anne Boleyn in Showtime’s The Tudors.
But asked why she is often cast as the femme fatale, Dormer said she isn’t sure.
“For me, it’s not necessarily interesting to play a strong, fearless woman. It’s interesting to play a woman who is terrified and then overcomes that fear. It’s about the journey. Courage is not the absence of fear, it’s overcoming it,” she said.