Emilia Clarke told the New York Times as part of the press tour for Peacock’s new spy series, The Ponies, that after eight years on HBO’s Game of Thrones, she’s mostly graduated from the fantasy genre. Clarke appeared on the show as Daenerys Targaryen, also known as the Mother of Dragons.
“You’ll never see me riding a dragon again, or even standing in the same frame as a dragon,” Clark told the magazine.
Clarke, who received four Emmy nominations for her role as Daenerys, was a central figure in the tumultuous final season of Thrones, where her character descended into madness and became one of the main villains of the last few episodes. Daenerys’ murder is the climax of the series finale of “Thrones.” Clarke once told Entertainment Weekly that she was speechless when she read the final script, as she had no idea that her role included Danny’s transformation into the Mad Queen.
“What, what, what, what!?” Clark said of how she reacted to Danny’s death. “It kind of just comes out of nowhere. It freaked me out. I never expected something like this to happen. I cried. Then I went for a walk. I left the house, grabbed my keys and my phone, and came 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 said, ‘I read the script and I don’t want to tell you what’s going to happen, but can you please get me off this ledge? I’m really confused,'” she continued. “And I asked my mom and my brother some really weird questions. They said, ‘Why are you asking this? What do you mean I think Daenerys is a good person? Why are you asking us those questions? Why do you care what people think about Daenerys? Are you okay?'”
“Thrones” viewers were furious at how rushed Dany’s transformation into the Mad Queen was during the final season. Clarke told the Sunday Times in 2020 that he was frustrated that the series prioritized set pieces over dialogue scenes and character work. A year later, when asked by The Hollywood Reporter whether she had reconciled with Thrones and how it ended, the actress replied, “I really did. I really, really, really reconciled.”
“I think it’s going to take me until I’m in my 90s to be able to objectively look at ‘Game of Thrones’ for what it was, because there’s so much of me in it,” Clarke said at the time. “There’s so much emotional reaction to what Emilia herself was going through in those moments when we were shooting this movie, you know what I mean? You watch a scene and you think, ‘Oh, that happened that wasn’t shown on screen.’ And I think there’s something timely about the prequels and continuations of the Game of Thrones story that are being made now. You look at it and think, ‘Wow, that’s it.'” So I just look at it peacefully. ”
Around the same time, Clark told MTV that he “understands why people are upset” about Danny’s dark turn. “I totally understand that. But as an actor, I can’t really appreciate a character that I’ve put 10 years of blood, sweat and tears into without being on the same page. So I’m not just going to be there like, ‘Okay, I’ll do whatever that scene is. I’m really pissed off,'” he added. you have to stand up. ”
To read Clark’s latest profile in full, visit the New York Times website.
