Emilia Clarke, known for her role as Daenerys in Game of Thrones, opened up about the intense fears she faced during her brain surgeries. In a recent interview with Big Issue, she shared her thoughts on how these life-threatening events in 2011 and 2013 impacted her sense of self and career.
The actress, who played Daenerys Targaryen from 2011 to 2019, worried that her brain injuries might lead to her being fired from the show. “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 said.
She recalled the fear that she might suffer another brain hemorrhage due to the stress of acting. “Well, if I’m going to die, I better die on live TV,” she told Big Issue. Clarke 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?’”
Clarke’s journey through her brain injury was incredibly challenging. She felt a profound sense of loneliness and even asked medical staff to let her die at her lowest point. “One of the biggest things I felt with a brain injury was profoundly alone. That is what we’re trying to overcome,” she shared, referring to her brain injury recovery charity, SameYou, which she founded with her mother Jennifer in 2019. SameYou works with Big Issue Recruit, a service helping people facing barriers to employment.
In her candid 2019 essay for The New Yorker, Clarke described how she suffered her first aneurysm in 2011, which caused a stroke and subarachnoid hemorrhage. During her recovery, she experienced aphasia, a condition that made her unable to remember her name. “In my worst moments, I wanted to pull the plug,” she wrote. “I asked the medical staff to let me die. My job — my entire dream of what my life would be — centered on language, on communication. Without that, I was lost.”
Fortunately, her aphasia was temporary, and she was able to speak again. However, she had to undergo a second surgery in 2013 to address another aneurysm.
Talking to PEOPLE in 2021, Clarke reflected on how the surgeries changed her perspective on beauty and happiness. “The happy moments and being happy is what you’re going to see on your death bed. You’re not going to remember the times when you took that super cute selfie,” she said. She added, “After the surgery, because I felt so scared and under-confident, I was putting all of that into how I looked. 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.”
