“Game of Thrones” actress Lena Headey recently sat down with The Los Angeles Times to talk about her role as the villain Madeline “Ma-Ma” Madrigal in the upcoming reboot of the “Judge Dredd” franchise.
The original British comic was much darker and grittier than the previous 1995 big-budget adaptation starring Sly Stallone, and this new version returns to that mould.
“The world [in the film] feels really British, and I don’t know if that’s because it’s so dirty and dark. And it’s … violent. Just in terms of gunplay, they’re not afraid to show blood and gunshot wounds. And it’s set up in this concrete sort of shanty town – it’s shanty but they’re blocks – concrete favelas” says Headey.
Originally conceived as an elderly woman, Headey convinced screenwriter Alex Garland to make her middle-aged and with a major hatred for all things male.
“She’s a prostitute who then kills her pimp and takes over his drug-running business. And Ma-Ma is a bit of a man-hater. I think of her like an old great white shark who is just waiting for someone bigger and stronger to show up and kill her. She’s ready for it. In fact, she can’t wait for it to happen. And yet no one can get the job done.”
She goes on to say “She’s an addict, so she’s dead in that way, but that last knock just hasn’t come. This big, fat, scarred shark moving through the sea and everyone flees and she’s like, ‘Will someone just have the balls to do it? Please?'”
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