Emilia Clarke

The dragon that nearly killed her

Emilia Clarke auditioned for Game of Thrones with the nerves of someone who knows their résumé is nearly empty. She was 23 years old and had only a couple of TV appearances when she accepted the role of Daenerys Targaryen. In 2010, she was working six different jobs to pay the rent while waiting for a real break. But the HBO series turned her reality upside down overnight.

During filming of the first season, she suffered her first brain aneurysm while training at a gym in London. It was a subarachnoid hemorrhage that required emergency brain surgery in 2011. She chose to keep the pain a secret to protect her place on the production. She could barely remember her own name in the intensive care unit, but she returned to set weeks later.

Her body was failing.

In 2013, she underwent a second surgery after another aneurysm grew and nearly cost her life. Doctors had to open her skull to stop the bleeding after a failed procedure through the groin. That experience shaped her relationship with fame and work during the years of greatest media exposure. She then founded the SameYou organization to help young people with similar brain injuries.

Survival Beyond Westeros

Commercial cinema didn't always respond the same way.

Her leap into major Hollywood franchises had mixed results at the global box office. In 2015, she played Sarah Connor in Terminator Genisys under the direction of Alan Taylor. The film grossed 440 million dollars, but critics tore apart the concept and the chemistry of the cast. That setback slowed her ambitions in pure action for a while.

But the romantic drama Me Before You in 2016 restored the studio investors' confidence. This adaptation of Jojo Moyes's novel earned 208 million dollars on a budget of just 20 million. The film showed that her ability to connect with audiences worked best at close range and in emotional registers. And the bet paid off.

In 2018, she took part in Solo: A Star Wars Story as Qi'ra on a set plagued by technical problems. The mid-production change of directors affected the final result, and the film became the first major financial setback for the franchise. Clarke stayed out of Lucasfilm's internal controversies while filming the final episodes of her main series.

Complete Control of the Script

After the end of Game of Thrones in 2019, she looked for projects that would let her move away from blonde wigs and special effects. In 2022, she made her West End debut in London with a version of The Seagull by Chekhov at the Harold Pinter Theatre. The production had to pause for two years due to the global health crisis, but it ultimately received solid reviews for her performance as Nina.

Her interest in production led her to found Magical Thinking Pictures to manage her own projects. In 2023, she starred in The Pod Generation alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor in a satire about technological motherhood. It was an independent project that aimed for a tone far removed from the traditional blockbusters of her earlier career.

That same year, she joined the Marvel universe with the series Secret Invasion, playing G'iah. Filming took place mainly at Pinewood Studios in London and on location in Leeds and Halifax. The series had an estimated budget of 212 million dollars for its first six episodes.

In 2024, the announcement of the espionage series Ponies for the Peacock streaming service confirmed her return to political thrillers. Clarke takes on the role of Bea while serving as executive producer under her own company's banner. Filming for this project was scheduled on a tightly planned production calendar in European territory.