$1.5 Million Lawsuit Against Lena Headey Confirms ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ Role and $7 Million Paycheck
Lena Headey doesn’t appear in Thor: Love and Thunder, but the actor finds herself in the news because of the movie. The 300 and Game of Thrones star was one of the highest-paid actors on the HBO show, but now her former talent agency claims she owes them commission fees. The agency’s lawsuit confirms Headey acted in the latest Thor movie, though her part didn’t make the final cut (and she’s not the only one).
Lena Headey sued for $1.5 million over commissions, including a cut of potential $7 million ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ paycheck
Headey has remained plenty busy since GOT ended its run. The British actor has appeared in numerous TV series and movies since the show ended in 2019, and she has one of the most successful post-Game of Thrones careers of anyone from the show.
Still, her former talent agency claims Headey needs to pay her commission fees.
As Variety reported, U.K. agency Troika sued Headey for $1.5 million in damages over unpaid commission fees.
The suit alleges Headey owes $300,000 for her 2022 movie 9 Bullets and $650,000 for the TV series Rita (which never moved beyond the pilot stage). Part of that $1.5 million includes $500,000 for Thor: Love and Thunder, which Variety reports is 7% of her fee for the film. That would put her paycheck at roughly $7 million for the fourth Thor movie.
Headey claims she doesn’t owe more than she’s already paid for Rita since it never became a full series. Variety reports the actor claims she never signed a formal contract with Troika and that the agency didn’t negotiate her contracts for 9 Bullets or Thor: Love and Thunder.
She acted and apparently got paid for her work, but Headey doesn’t appear in the latest Thor movie, and the same goes for two other famous co-stars.
Headey isn’t the only star whose part was cut in ‘Love and Thunder’
Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi said fans should expect several cameos in the movie. Headey won’t be among them, but she isn’t alone in having her part eliminated.
Christian Bale, who plays Gorr the God Butcher, confirmed during an interview that Headey’s former GOT co-star, Peter Dinklage, had his role of Eitri trimmed from the Love and Thunder finished product, as CBR reports. Dinklage first played Eitri in 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War.
Jeff Goldblum’s Grandmaster character, first seen in Thor: Ragnarok, was cut from Love and Thunder, too.
There’s always a chance we could see Headey, Dinklage, and Goldblum in a Love and Thunder director’s cut or in the outtakes on the Blu-ray release. But it seems the theatrical cut will focus on Thor, Jane, their Asgardian compatriots, and Bale’s Gorr.
Headey has a healthy net worth but has faced financial difficulties in the past
Headey earned fame with 300 and Game of Thrones, but she started acting professionally long before that.
She had high-profile roles in movies such as Remains of the Day and Ripley’s Game. Headey played Kitty in the live-action Jungle Book, Angelika in The Brothers Grimm, and Mary Sandin in The Purge.
Headey’s steady work helped her build a healthy net worth, but you can’t cover her financials without mentioning her bitter divorce from Irish musician Peter Loughran. The couple married in 2007, their marriage disintegrated in 2011 when Game of Thrones went on the air, and she filed for divorce in 2012. During the divorce process, she claimed she had less than $5 in the bank.
Whether or not that $5 figure is accurate, she found stable financial footing by 2019. Lena Headey’s net worth is an estimated $9 million. If she can move past the lawsuit stemming from Thor: Love and Thunder, she’ll continue to earn money with upcoming projects such as the movie Crooks and the TV series The White House Plumbers, New-Gen, and Beacon 23.
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