'Game Of Thrones' Star: Female Empowerment Is About More Than Kicking Ass And Having Sex

Natalie Dormer has appeared in her fair share of explicit scenes in shows like "Game of Thrones " and "The Tudors," but she doesn't necessarily credit them with female empowerment. 

“Female empowerment shouldn’t be exclusively about sexuality," Dormer told The Guardian . "And you meet a lot -- and I’m going to be careful what I say here -- you meet a fair fraction of male writers and directors who want to wave the equality flag and believe that they’re making you a kick-ass female assassin, and they’re empowering you. Whereas true empowerment would be… [laughing] you know, not a stylized, hyper-sexualization.”

The 33-year-old actress was recently criticized for comments she made about her GoT character Queen Margaery Tyrell's relationship with the underage King Tommen   -- who is 12 years old in the books, but played by 17-year-old Dean Charles Chapman. Dormer told one publication that "after what we’ve done on this show -- the rape, the incest, the child murdering" she was "baffled" by louder outcry to this storyline in particular. Some twisted these comments into the actress condoning sex with minors . 

Dormer, who released a statement clarifying her remarks, challenged the outrageous misinterpretation while speaking with The Guardian, saying a man wouldn't have received the same pushback. 

“The first point is that the male actors in the show don’t get a lot of flak when they’re raping and murdering, because people understand it’s fantasy, and yet if a female actress has to portray something -- which isn’t portrayed explicitly -- I get flak, personally," she told The Guardian. 

Dormer noted that her role as Cressida in The Hunger Games films is a welcome reprieve from more sexualized roles and the anxieties that come with them. “It’s so refreshing to play a woman who’s not defined by the love of a man," she told The Guardian. "I was getting a little tired of sitting around in a silk skirt. It was a good antidote to put on a pair of army boots and run around in the mud for nine months,”

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