Emilia Clarke Says She Would Be Afraid of Losing Game of Thrones Role After Suffering Brain Aneurysms
Emilia Clarke recently revealed her fear of brain surgeries that might make her lose her role in Game of Thrones. During an interview with Big Issue, she talked about her career and health issues and said that she was afraid of losing the series.
She said, “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 also added, “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?”
She said another fear she suffered was on the set due to the pressure of acting in front of many people. She said, “Well, if I’m going to die, I better die on live TV.”
Clark played one of the main leads in the Game of Thrones series. She portrayed the character of Daenerys Targaryen between 2011 and 2019. She suffered her first brain aneurysms in 2011 during the filming of the series’ first and second seasons. That caused her to have a stroke and a subarachnoid hemorrhage.
In her essays for The New Yorker in 2019, she recalled that she was unable to remember her name for two weeks as she suffered from temporary aphasia.
She wrote in The New Yorker, “I wanted to pull the plug. I asked the medical staff to let me die,” and continued, “My job—my entire dream of what my life would be—centered on language, on communication. Without that, I was lost.”
Clarke faced another brain aneurysm in 2013 and underwent a second surgery. In a conversation with people in 2021, she talked about realizing true beauty.
She said, “After the surgery, because I felt so scared and under-confident, I was putting all of that into how I looked,” and also added, “As I got older, I realized that people are at their most beautiful when they’re not thinking about themselves and considering their own beauty.”
In 2019, Clarke launched a charity named ‘SameYou’, which aims to help young people who are the victims of brain injury or stroke.
Clarke got four Primetime Emmy Award nominations for her performance in Game of Thrones. She also acted in the films Terminator Genisys, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Me Before Yoy, and Last Christmas. She also appeared in Disney+’s miniseries, Secret Invasion.