Hello everyone... Nina here to present another installment of "Across the Pond," Dominique Taylor's semi-regular column focusing on the UK entertainment scene. This week, Dominique opines on the talents of Lena Headey with the recent news that she has landed the role of Sarah Connor in the Fox network's Sarah Connor Chronicles...
Things Get Heady for Lena
By Dominique Taylor
As Nina has already mentioned, Lena Headey has landed the role as Sarah Connor in Fox’s new Terminator spin-off and so this week is dedicated to the Huddersfield girl who finally gets her break and asks the question, can she cut it?
Lina Heady has long been one of those actresses that you’re sure you’ve seen before but can’t really place. Playing alongside Steve Coogan in The Parole Officer I remember mistaking her for Melanie Sykes. And in similar Sykes fashion, she is a beautiful Northern brunette, but unlike Sykes, a midday ITV show with Des O’ Conner seems a million miles away as she is forging a solid career in Hollywood.
Solid because if you look at her filmography on IMDB, you will see that she has featured not only in Brothers Grimm, but also Onegin, Possession, Ripley’s Game and The Cave and she’s also got a number of films in pre and post-production, including Vivaldi and The Shooter. However, the same website reminds us of her thus far over-shadowed talent by offering a biography that could fit on a postage stamp and giving priority to the fact she was born on the same day as Seann William Scott. Flattering, no?
But can she blow this all into space as she lands the role of Sarah Connor? Her role in The Cave saw her as an adrenaline junky mega bitch and she’s got the tattoos to butch herself up, but the thing that’s worrying me is that this is supposed to take place in the time between Terminator 2 and 3 and she doesn’t look a bit like Axl Rose. Where’s the realism? If this is going to work, I need to know why Sarah Connor decided the scraped-back hair, sunglasses and fag look was not for her.
All facetiousness aside, what I’m trying to get at is that, in usual fashion, James Cameron provided us with a heroine that was largely desexualised (other than the small matter of creating John) and Fox has swiftly sexed her up again. I hope Lena does well, she deserves a steady starring role in the US, but I’m rather concerned this could just end up as one for the lads as a beautiful woman runs around firing her big gun and getting sweaty.
