Emilia Clarke Says She's Done With the Fantasy Genre After GAME OF THRONES - "You're Unlikely to See Me Get on a Dragon Ever Again"
Emmy nominated actress Emilia Clarke has been in many great movies and shows throughout her career, but she will probably always be known by fans as Daenerys Targaryen, aka the Mother of Dragons from her eight season reign on the HBO series Game of Thrones.
While the actress has spoken fondly of her time making the show, it sounds like it also gave her her fill of that type of story.
Clarke told The New York Times as part of the press tour for her new Peacock espionage series Ponies that she is more or less done with the fantasy genre after spending eight years on Game of Thrones. “You’re highly unlikely to see me get on a dragon, or even in the same frame as a dragon, ever again.”
Clarke, who earned four Emmy nominations for her portrayal of Daenerys, was at the center of Thrones' tumultuous final season as her character went mad and turned into one of the primary villains of the last few episodes.
Daenerys’ murder is the climax of the Thrones series finale. Clarke once told Entertainment Weekly that she had no idea Dany’s transformation into the Mad Queen was in store for her character, so she was speechless when she read the final scripts.
“What, what, what, WHAT!?” Clarke said about how she reacted to Dany’s death. “Because it comes out of fucking nowhere. I’m flabbergasted. Absolutely never saw that coming.
“I cried. And I went for a walk. I walked out of the house and took my keys and phone and walked back with blisters on my feet. I didn’t come back for five hours. I’m like, ‘How am I going to do this?’
“I called my mom and [told her], ‘I read the scripts and I don’t want to tell you what happens but can you just talk me off this ledge? It really messed me up,’” she continued.
“And then I asked my mom and brother really weird questions. They were like: ‘What are you asking us this for? What do you mean do I think Daenerys is a good person? Why are you asking us that question? Why do you care what people think of Daenerys? Are you okay?’”
Thrones viewers were largely outraged by how rushed Dany’s transformation into the Mad Queen felt during the final season. Clarke told The Sunday Times in 2020 that she was annoyed the series prioritized set pieces over dialogue scenes and character work.
Asked by The Hollywood Reporter a year later if she had made peace with Thrones and how it ended, the actress answered, “I really have. I really, really, really have.”
via: Variety