EMILIA CLARKE LOOKS BACK ON HER HEALTH ORDEAL
‘The amount of my brain that is no longer usable—it’s remarkable that I am able to speak, sometimes articulately, and live my life completely normally with absolutely no repercussions,’ the ‘Game of Thrones’ star said in a recent BBC interview
Emilia Clarke sounded light-hearted when talking about her recovery from two life-threatening brain aneurysms shortly after appearing as Daenerys Targaryen on Game of Thrones in 2011.
Clarke recalled her health ordeal in a recent BBC interview.
“The amount of my brain that is no longer usable — it’s remarkable that I am able to speak, sometimes articulately, and live my life completely normally with absolutely no repercussions,” she said.
“There’s quite a bit missing, ONEwhich always makes me laugh…
I am in the really, really, really small minority of people that can survive that.”
Careful watch
In an essay she wrote for The New Yorker in 2019, Clarke discussed in detail her precarious condition after surviving the strokes:
“I went back to my life, but, while I was in the hospital, I was told that I had a smaller aneurysm on the other side of my brain, and it could ‘pop’ at any time. The doctors said, though, that it was small and it was possible it would remain dormant and harmless indefinitely.
“We would just keep a careful watch. And recovery was hardly instant. There was still the pain to deal with, and morphine to keep it at bay. I told my bosses at ‘Thrones’ about my condition, but I didn’t want it to be a subject of public discussion and dissection. The show must go on!
“Even before we began filming Season 2, I was deeply unsure of myself. I was often so woozy, so weak, that I thought I was going to die. Staying at a hotel in London during a publicity tour, I vividly remember thinking, I can’t keep up or think or breathe, much less try to be charming.
“I sipped on morphine in between interviews. The pain was there, and the fatigue was like the worst exhaustion I’d ever experienced, multiplied by a million. And, let’s face it, I’m an actor. Vanity comes with the job. I spent way too much time thinking about how I looked. If all this weren’t enough, I seemed to whack my head every time I tried to get in a taxi.”
In 2014, Clarke was voted the most desirable woman in the world by AskMen readers. The following year, she was named Esquire’s Sexiest Woman Alive and was given the GQ Woman of the Year Award.
She was likewise among Glamour’s Best Dressed Women in 2017.
After the final season of Game of Thrones in 2019, Clarke, in a nod to her character Daenerys Targaryen, sported a wrist tattoo of a trio of flying dragons.