Emilia Clarke has opened up about the terrifying moment she thought she had “cheated death” after suffering two brain haemorrhages during her time on Game of Thrones.
Talking about This is how you fail with Elizabeth Day podcast, the 39-year-old actress revealed that the medical emergencies left her emotionally shut down and at one point convinced she was “meant to die.”
Clarke, who rose to fame as Daenerys Targaryen, admitted that the constant fear of her own mortality consumed her thoughts after the second incident.
The first bleeding hit just after the first season of the hit HBO show ended.
Clarke recalled collapsing during a workout at a London gym and described feeling like an elastic band had snapped inside her head.
While waiting for medical attention, she repeatedly told herself she was “an actor” in a desperate attempt to stay conscious and protect the dream job she had just started.
But the recovery was tinged with a deep sense of shame, as she feared her employers would see her as “weak” or “broken” if they knew the extent of her condition.
While Clarke told showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss about her health, she kept the ordeal private from the public for years.
Her health took another turn for the worse while performing on Broadway in New York, where another aneurysm required emergency surgery that nearly cost her her life.
She recalled the harrowing moment her parents were told by doctors every half hour that they thought she was going to die.
This second ordeal was even more taxing and caused her to disconnect from the world as she felt that her body and brain had failed her in a way that 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 recalled thinking that if she was going to die, she would “do it on live TV.”
Despite the trauma, Clarke credited her career with helping her survive the emotional fallout, saying she doesn’t know what she would have done without her work 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 has been honest about the deep sense of loneliness that often follows such an injury and aims to help others overcome this isolation.
Looking back on her decade-long stay Game of Thronesshe now sees the series as “lightning in a bottle” and a defining chapter in her youth.
