Emilia Clarke has spoken of the terrifying moment she thought she had “cheated death” after suffering two brain haemorrhages while in office. Game of Thrones.
Speaking on the How to Fail with Elizabeth Day podcast, the 39-year-old actress revealed that medical emergencies left her emotionally closed off and convinced, at one point, that she was “destined to die.”
Clarke, who rose to fame playing Daenerys Targaryen, admitted that the constant fear of her own mortality consumed her every thought after the second incident.
The first hemorrhage hit just after the end of the first season of the hit HBO series.
Clarke remembers collapsing during a workout at a gym in London, describing the feeling as if a rubber band had snapped in her head.
As she waited for medical help, she repeatedly told herself she was “an actress” in a desperate attempt to stay conscious and protect the dream job she had just started.
However, her recovery was marred by a deep sense of shame, as she feared that her employers would view her as “weak” or “broken” if they knew the extent of her condition.
While Clarke spoke about her health to showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss, she kept the ordeal private from the public for years.
Her health further deteriorated while performing on Broadway in New York, where a second aneurysm required emergency surgery that nearly cost her life.
She remembers the heartbreaking moment when her parents heard doctors say every half hour that they thought she was going to die.
This second ordeal was even more trying, causing her to disconnect from the world as she felt her body and brain had failed her in ways no one else could perceive.
The actress admitted that she gave herself very little grace during her recovery, instead viewing the illness as a personal failure.
At one point, while promoting the show at San Diego Comic-Con shortly after the surgery, she remembers thinking that if she were to die, she would “do it live on TV.”
Despite the trauma, Clarke acknowledged that her career helped her survive the emotional fallout, stating that she didn’t know what she would have done without her job to focus on.
Today, Clarke uses her experience to help others through her charity SameYou, which she founded in 2019 to support brain injury survivors.
She spoke candidly about the deep feeling of loneliness that often follows such an injury and wants to help others overcome this isolation.
A look back at his decade-long stint on Game of Thronesshe now considers the series “lightning in a bottle” and a defining chapter of her youth.
