Game of Thrones Star Emilia Clarke Feared She'd 'Cheated Death' Living Through Her Brain Aneurysms, and Thought She'd Collapse Live on MTV
· IGN
Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke has discussed her fears in the aftermath of having multiple brain aneurysms — and her belief that she might experience another just as she was giving a live interview on MTV.
Speaking on the How to Fail with Elizabeth Day podcast, Clarke went into more detail on the brain aneurysms she suffered in 2011 and 2013, during her early years on Game of Thrones portraying Daenerys Targaryen.
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It's a subject Clarke has discussed previously — and indeed, she now publicly heads a charity to aid young people following brain injury or stroke. Still, her comments here shed light on how she felt about her subsequent chances of recovery, and fears that she might experience another medical incident shortly after.
"The biggest thing that happened to me with the second hemorrhage was I shut down emotionally and it became this thing where I couldn't look anyone in the eye," Clarke said. "I was just convinced that I had cheated death and I was meant to die. And that every day that was all I could think about.
"It was the opposite of, 'I survived, I feel great,'" she continued. "It was, 'I'm not meant to be here. This is going to come and get me.' And it just cuts you off from being able to engage with the outside world because you're walking around knowing that your body has failed you. Your brain has failed you. This thing that you know to be where your perception of your self lies has failed you. And no one else can see it."
Clarke portrayed Daenerys Targaryen through every season of the show, and while she had told bosses of her medical condition, she was also insistent she could continue to work.
"I'll never forget we went to Comic-Con like six weeks later [after her second hemorrhage], I'm promoting the show... and I started getting a headache. And anytime I got any kind of headache, I was like, 'That's it. It's happening. It's happening again.' And I was getting this headache and my publicist was like, 'Right, we got to go do this live interview with MTV.' And I was like, 'I think I'm going to die. I think it's happening.' In my head, I was like, 'If I'm going to die, I'll do it on live TV. Like, let's go. There is there is no other option.
"I was blessed that after each of my brain injuries in my mind there was no other option but to carry on," she concluded. "I was raised by a family that did not partake in pity. Self-pity was not on the table. It's not how we operated."
Earlier this year, Emilia Clarke discussed her time on Game of Thrones in more detail, and admitted feeling "really pissed" at the expert who developed the show's fictional languages, after reading that he thought her Dothraki pronounciation "sucked." In a separate interview, the actress stated she was likely now done with fantasy TV shows and movies, and it was "highly unlikely" viewers would see her "get on a dragon, or even in the same frame as a dragon, ever again."
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Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social