The truth is near.
Emilia Clarke has finally cleared up the viral rumors about the incredible paychecks she and the other Game of Thrones cast members received while filming the HBO hit show.
More than a decade after reports surfaced that her co-stars earned $300,000 each per episode, the actress insisted to Variety that she “doesn’t make that much.”
In an interview published Friday, Clark asked, “Can you imagine? I would have driven a few Porsches!”
The 39-year-old, who played Daenerys Targaryen, did not elaborate on how “hugely exaggerated” that number was.
She also did not address Variety’s 2017 report that the figure was as high as $500,000 for each episode.
The series first aired in 2011 and ran for eight seasons until ending in 2019.
In addition to Clark, the show also starred Kit Harington, Lena Headey, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and more.
Before the final episode, Clark revealed that she was “always paid the same amount” as her male co-stars.
“This was my first job, and I was never discriminated against for being a woman in terms of pay,” the Emmy nominee said in an interview at a screening at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.
That same year, court documents from Coster-Waldau’s legal battle with his former manager revealed that he earned $1.07 million per episode for “at least six episodes” of the final season.
Sophie Turner, on the other hand, reportedly earns $175,000, which she mentioned in a 2019 Harper’s Bazaar roundtable.
“Kit had more money than I did, but he had a bigger story,” the “Dark Phoenix” star, 30, said at the time. “And in the last series, he had this crazy thing of 70 night shoots, and I didn’t have that many. I thought, ‘You know what? You’re holding onto that money.'”
Elsewhere in Friday’s interview, Clarke said he was having a hard time “understanding” the cast’s “Game of Thrones” fame.
“You know it’s just a formula that when you’re no longer on TV, you’re less well-known,” she explained. “It comes and it goes.”
Clark also opened up about “cheating death” by surviving multiple brain aneurysms, which he recently talked about on the How to Fail podcast.
“I couldn’t look anyone in the eye anymore,” she said earlier this month. “You’re walking around knowing your body is failing, so you’re just cut off from the outside world.”
The near-fatal health scares in 2011 and 2013 occurred specifically while Clarke was filming Game of Thrones.
