For years, Emilia Clarke did what she felt she had to do: keep going. Behind the enormous success of “Game of Thrones,” the actress was coping with two life-threatening brain hemorrhages, the loss of her father, and a level of fame that arrived almost overnight.
Clarke, 39, now believes she didn’t fully understand what those experiences did to her until much later. “When I was filming Game of Thrones, I had zero curiosity about myself, about the experience, about anything. I was just in shock. I froze – for 10 years,” she told Marie Claire UK in an interview published on Friday, October 9.
Why Does Emilia Clarke Say She Was ‘In Shock’ for 10 Years?
Clarke suffered her first brain hemorrhage in 2011, shortly after completing the first season of the HBO series.
“Season one wrapped at Christmas; by February, I was in hospital with my first brain hemorrhage. So my first press tour was me on morphine,” she told the outlet.
A second hemorrhage followed in 2013. Looking back, Clarke said she mostly pushed forward rather than stop and process everything happening around her. Her father’s death added another devastating loss.
“The second time, I was like, ‘This just is really, really, really, really hard.’ And then my dad died, and that completely undid me,” she told Marie Claire UK.
Only after “Game of Thrones” ended in 2019 did the feelings she had pushed aside begin to surface.
“I was just like, ‘just keep going’. So then, when [Game of Thrones] stopped, all of these feelings came and took over me. COVID happened, it was a perfect storm,” she said.
How Does Emilia Clarke Feel About Those Experiences Now?
Clarke said time has changed the way she views what she survived.
“Oh hell, yeah. I’m grateful for all of it,” she said when asked whether she emerged stronger. “Once you are given time after the hurt, you’ve been given a superpower, and that superpower is empathy.”
That perspective has also changed how she approaches work.
The actress admitted she spent much of the first decade of her career saying yes to projects because she didn’t realize she could say no. Now, the people involved matter as much as the job itself.
“I want to want to go to work,” she said.
Clarke previously revisited those frightening years during a May appearance on journalist Elizabeth Day’s “How to Fail” podcast.
She recalled suffering the first hemorrhage while exercising and trying to keep the medical emergency from HBO until her team knew she would survive.
“The biggest thing that happened to me with the second brain hemorrhage was I shut down emotionally,” Clarke said on the podcast. “It became this thing where I just couldn’t look anyone in the eye.”
What Is Next for Emilia Clarke?
Clarke is approaching another milestone when she turns 40 on Friday, October 23.
After years spent simply pushing through, Clarke appears determined to enter her next decade differently.
“As long as I just keep trying to have a giggle,” she told Marie Claire UK. “That’s my goal for the next decade of my life: to take it lightly.”
According to London Theatre, she is preparing to appear in “Plenty” at London’s National Theatre, directed by Richard Eyre, and also stars in the upcoming romantic drama “Next Life.”
Comments
‘Game of Thrones’ Star Emilia Clarke Opens Up About Losing Her Dad and Surviving Brain Hemorrhages