Winter was ending for Emilia Clarke.
The actress revealed just how hard it was for her after “Game of Thrones” ended following eight seasons in 2019.
“It was the first time in my professional life that I stopped,” Clarke, who starred as Daenerys Targaryen, the Mother of Dragons on the series, told The New York Times. “I had a full mental breakdown. It was almost as if the timing of the pandemic was bang on.”
The hit HBO show first debuted in 2011 and also featured Sophie Turner, Kit Harington and Maisie Williams.
Once “Game of Thrones” concluded, it gave Clarke time “to realize that I could try and get some autonomy over my choices, my work. So much of my career didn’t reflect my taste, I just sort of shot out of a cannon.”
The “Me Before You” star, 39, was just 22 when she landed the role, which was her third acting job.
Clarke said she “never had time to stop and consider the meaning of it.”
Going forward, the actress, who earned four Emmy nominations during her time on “GoT,” doesn’t see herself working in fantasy again.
“You’re highly unlikely to see me get on a dragon, or even in the same frame as a dragon, ever again,” Clarke told the outlet.
In 2019, the star shared that shortly after filming Season 1 of the HBO show in 2011, she had an aneurysm, which also led to a type of stroke called a subarachnoid hemorrhage.
“Just when all my childhood dreams seemed to have come true, I nearly lost my mind and then my life,” Clarke penned in a piece published by The New Yorker at the time.
In 2024, she said she feared of getting fired due to her brain aneurysm.
“When you have a brain injury, because it alters your sense of self on such a dramatic level, all of the insecurities you have going into the workplace quadruple overnight,” Clarke told Big Issue at the time.
“The first fear we all had was: ‘Oh my God, am I going to get fired? Am I going to get fired because they think I’m not capable of completing the job?’ ”
Clarke was nervous that the high pressure atmosphere would cause a second brain hemorrhage.
She recalled thinking, “Well, if I’m going to die, I better die on live TV.”
“Having a chronic condition that diminishes your confidence in this one thing you feel is your reason to live is so debilitating and so lonely,” Clarke continued.
“One of the biggest things I felt with a brain injury was profoundly alone. That is what we’re trying to overcome.”
However, Clarke continued to work on the show until the finale, which riled up fans due to how the show’s ending torpedoed Daenerys’ character arc.
Clarke told Entertainment Weekly in 2019 that she had no idea Daenery was set to turn into the villain.
“What, what, what, WHAT!?” she recalled about her reaction to Dany’s death. “Because it comes out of f–king nowhere. I’m flabbergasted. Absolutely never saw that coming. I cried. And I went for a walk. I walked out of the house and took my keys and phone and walked back with blisters on my feet. I didn’t come back for five hours. I’m like, ‘How am I going to do this?’”
“I called my mom and [told her], ‘I read the scripts and I don’t want to tell you what happens but can you just talk me off this ledge? It really messed me up,’” Clarke continued. “And then I asked my mom and brother really weird questions. They were like: ‘What are you asking us this for? What do you mean do I think Daenerys is a good person? Why are you asking us that question? Why do you care what people think of Daenerys? Are you OK?’”
But a year later, she divulged to The Hollywood Reporter that she had made peace with her ending.
“I really have,” she insisted. “I really, really, really have.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
