“People always want to know about [stars’ love lives]. They watch them in a role and then remember seeing them on the front of a magazine,” says Clarke. “But you work so hard for a role, you don’t want anything to interrupt the suspension of disbelief when an audience is watching you.”
“Emilia is not one of those Method actors who comes into the audition dressed as a princess in a silver wig,” says Game of Thrones co-creator David Benioff. “She’s just herself, which is to say lovely, kind, and funny as hell.”
“We saw hundreds of people for the role,” says D.B. Weiss, one of the producers serving fruit at Clarke’s audition. “This character needed to step into Joan of Arc territory, to deliver a messianic level of intensity. There was only one actress [we saw] who could do that.”
“I’d done nudity before and was concerned with being labeled for doing it again,” she explains of why she said no to Fifty Shades of Grey.
“There are other women who remove items of clothing on our show, so they’ve kind of got my nipple count down now,” the actress jokes.
“Game of Thrones,” she says with a contented smile, “takes very good care of us.”
“I get to play other roles without the comparison of being Daenerys, which I think is so lucky,” she says, putting a positive spin on her anonymity.
“She’ll be in a scene sobbing and as soon as you say, ‘cut,’ she’ll turn back to the crew and finish the joke she was telling before she started,” Genisys’ director, Alan Taylor says. “She can step into and out of it in a way that some American actors can’t.”