On a recent Monday afternoon, the queen was taking her tea. Could I just be more English than sense itself and get an Earl Grey? asks Emilia Clarke from the deep folds of a leather chesterfield sofa in the so-called Drawing Room of her downtown Manhattan hotel. The young waiter is only too happy to oblige, though its unclear whether he knows hes in the presence of the Khaleesi, Mother of Dragons and rightful ruler of the Seven Kingdoms.
That being said, six seasons into HBOs Game of Thrones a cultural phenomenon that plays in no fewer than 170 countries, has inspired countless tattoos and baby namings, and has proved to be the networks most popular show of all time, with a seventh season set to premiere July 16th its more than likely that he does. Clarke smiles and tucks her feet up under her. Im crap at getting recognized, she confides. People are like, Oh, hey! And Im like she starts yelling God! Oh, hi! Im sorry!
See 'Game of Thrones' Star Emilia Clarke Sing 'Mmmbop' in Dothraki'Game of Thrones' Season 7: Everything We Know So FarThe Beatles' 'Abbey Road': 5 Great Country, Americana Covers20 Insanely Great Eminem Tracks Only Hardcore Fans Know
When I first met Clarke, back in 2013, the actress was 26, still relatively unknown when not wearing her signature GoT blond wig, and not likely to compare herself to her warrior-queen character. Shed still seemed slightly in awe of the fact that shed gotten the job at all, which was only her third acting role ever. Im all too painfully aware of how quickly this can disappear, shed told me when wed met in a Broadway dressing room, where she was rehearsing to play Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffanys.
Four years later, Clarke has maintained her hallmarks wry humor and ample good will, among them but its clear were in another realm. Even in a messy bun and frayed blue jeans, she now comes across as a sort of beacon poised, almost glowing, a point to which all other attention cant help but be drawn. In other words, she has a way of commanding the room that seems downright Khaleesi-esque. She has, after all, now spent the bulk of her adult life embodying one of our cultures most striking images of female domination, while eloquently explaining her onscreen nudity in broadly feminist terms. Shes turned 30 (of which she says, I was just quietly panicking). Shes graced the big screen multiple times, including opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator Genisys. And, like the rest of us, shes lived through Brexit and the ascendency of Trump, or, as she puts it, 16. The fucking year where everything shit happened. So, times have changed for better and for worse.
You cant expect everyone to just stop doing their jobs and march every day of their lives, she says of the volatile political climate. But weve got to be in this shit for the long game. And for Clarke, being in this shit means not being OK with a lot of what goes on around her a realization that grew and amplified in a [post-Brexit] era where you suddenly go, What do you mean my views are so vastly different from my neighbor? Like, for example, her views on being one of the few women on any given set. Or the fact that women consistently have fewer lines than their male counterparts, even when theyre playing the lead. Or that actresses must arrive for hair and makeup hours before most of the male stars.
I feel so naive for saying it, but its like dealing with racism, she says. Youre aware of it, and youre aware of it, but one day, you go, Oh, my God, its everywhere! Like you suddenly wake up to it and you go, Wait a fucking second, are you...are you treating me different because Ive got a pair of tits? Is that actually happening? It took me a really long time to see that I do get treated differently. But I look around, and thats my daily life.
She recognizes, of course, that this is a complicated stance to take as a woman who has no doubt benefited hugely from her, ahem, pair of tits. She was Esquires Sexiest Woman Alive in 2015 (My mum bribed them), and her role on Game of Thrones has been punctuated by momentous scenes in which she happened to be naked. It doesnt stop me from being a feminist, she counters. Like, guess what? Yes, Ive got mascara on, and I also have a high IQ, so those two things can be one and the same. But the complexity of gaining womens-empowerment cred through such channels explains why shes also glad about the evolution of her character, a woman who rose literally from the ashes and now seems poised to win the game of thrones. Throughout history, Clarke reminds me, Women have been great rulers. And then for that to be a character that Im known to play? Thats so fucking lucky. Anyone who seems to think that its not needed need only look at the political environment were all living in to be like, Oh, no, its needed. It is needed.
All of which means that Clarke is now embracing her characters power in a way that might not have been possible for her when the series first aired, when the dew of Oxfordshire was still fresh upon her. Clarke grew up about an hour outside London in the tweedy British countryside of meat pies and bovine creatures. You know, I grew up with a stream in the garden and with fields everywhere, she says. We used to go mushroom-picking. There were ducks. It was idyllic on every level. She followed her older brother to St. Edwards, a private boarding school in Oxford where, as the daughter of a sound designer (whod started out as a roadie) and a marketing VP (whod started out at secretarial college), she was somewhat removed from the upper-crust kids of her new milieu. It was a fancy school, she says. And we werent that fancy. She was also an artsy kid at a school that wasnt that artsy. People were good at hockey and wanted to be lawyers. I just wanted to be everyones friend, she says. It was painful I was on the outskirts, peeping in, going, You guys look fun. Can I come join?
After graduation, she applied to RADA, LAMDA and Guildhall, a trifecta of hallowed institutions for British would-be actors, and got rejected from every one. She waitressed, saved up some money, went backpacking around Southeast Asia and India, and then reapplied to a bajillion schools, only getting into the Drama Centre London by the skin of my teeth when I got a phone call saying, This girl broke her leg. The place is free if you want it.
Drama school was another venue where she learned her place. She was never the favorite. She was never the ingnue. She played old ladies and bedraggled prostitutes. They broke us down, she tells me. But if youre a favorite at school, youre fucked for life. I mean, you come out and youre like, Hey, wheres my golden egg? Whereas when you havent had that at all, youre just like, I will do anything. I will work harder than you could imagine. She gave herself a year to break into the industry. Right around that deadline, cash-strapped, despairing and casting about for alternative life plans, Clarke just scraping five feet two, curvy and brunette got a call from her agents about auditioning for the role of tall, willowy, blond Daenerys Targaryen. She turned to Google for a crash course on George R.R. Martins novels and then went in to meet the HBO execs. At some point in the audition, she found herself doing the funky chicken.
You wake up and go, Wait a fucking second, are you treating me different because Ive got a pair of tits'
She also managed to broadcast the range HBO was seeking: Clarke had the vulnerability of someone who wasnt the favorite but also the strength of a young woman whod grown up with a working mother who had herself risen out of secretarial school to forge a high-powered career. I was so lucky that I was brought up with a mum who just showed by example, Clarke says. It was never spelt out that I would have a harder time in life. My family put a fair amount of onus on wanting to expand your thinking as opposed to shrinking your bottom.
This goes a long way toward explaining the more personal reason why 2016 was a shitty year for Clarke. On July 10th, her father whose behind-the-scenes work got her interested in acting in the first place passed away from cancer. Clarke was filming a movie in Kentucky and unable to be home for all of his final days. When things got dire, she wrapped the movie early but arrived at the airport in London to learn that shed just missed him. I definitely think Im still in varying degrees of shock, she says. Theres no measure for it. There are all of these books about grief, but theres no guide. Like, Oh, on Tuesday, youll feel this, but on Thursday, youll be here.
Three weeks after her fathers death, Clarke began filming the seventh season of Game of Thrones. A few weeks before it, Brexit had happened. The world felt like a scarier place once my dad wasnt in it, she says. And then those two things happening in quick succession threw me off balance and made me re-evaluate who I am. And it was in that re-evaluation that I was like, Im a fucking woman, and there arent very many of us performing in the environment that Im performing in. I need to be incredibly sure of the ground on which Im standing, and I need to take ownership of the choices Im making.
That included the way she comported herself on set. Clarkes general approach to the world is self-deprecating levity. When one spends your days discussing the politics of Kings Landing, its very important not to forget to do your penguin dance between takes, co-star Peter Dinklage says of her capacity for goofing around, while she describes what goes through her mind when acting opposite a mechanical dragon thusly: Im like, Is he clenching? Is he farting? What do you want me to do?
But over the course of the show, Clarkes own vulnerability has shrunk as Khaleesis power has expanded. You dont get to be a mother of dragons without a change or two, she says. Being able to encompass and understand the kind of woman who could conquer armies and topple societies allows me, the actor, to stand firmly in those shoes. Which came in handy on set when something would remind her of her father and literally take my breath away, she says. You underestimate the enormity of it. I didnt know feeling this way was possible. In those moments, shed gather her strength and try to channel that emotion into her work. I was like, Im not gonna let you see me cry. That aint happening. Instead, shed steal away for a moment and then come back to being Khaleesi.
For Clarke, Khaleesis story is about to come to a close. Sometime next year, the final episode of Game of Thrones will air and the role that shes been playing for almost a decade, the role that saved my ass in so many ways propelled my ass, really, will be over. Theres going to be a shake-up of my identity, I think, she says of that inevitability. And I feel like Im only going to understand what the last seven years has been when we stop.
She promises the upcoming episodes of the epic will not disappoint. Spoiler alert I normally dont spend very much time in Belfast, but this last season I spent a little more time there, she says, throwing a hint to the GoT obsessives. Its a really interesting season in terms of some loose ends that have been tied, some really satisfying plot points, some things where youre like, Oh, my God. I forgot about that! Rumors are going to be confirmed or denied. But Khaleesis plotline will continue through to the end. I mean, I have no doubt therell be prequels and sequels and who knows what else. But I am doing one more season. And then thatll be it.
After that eighth and final season, Clarke will have a freedom that she hasnt had since she was cast at age 23. The roughly seven months of each year shes spent waking up at 3 a.m. to get into hair and makeup, the 18-hour days in which shes pretended to ride a dragon or lead an army or walk naked through fire, will suddenly be hers again. The thought is both daunting and titillating. It makes me emotional to think about, she says. Its my beginning, middle and end the single thing that has changed me most as an adult.
Not that freedom is here yet. When she returns to London in a few days, it will be for the Han Solo Star Wars prequel, in which she presumably plays yet another bad-ass woman. All I can say is that shes awesome, Clarke tells me. Like, legit, thats all I can actually get away with saying. Theres a stormtrooper with a gun, and hes going to come walking in any second.
After Star Wars, Clarkes ultimate goal is to create the kind of shop that rights the wrongs shes witnessed: I would love to start a production company that was just full of nice, funny women, and where the vibe was one of Yeah, Ive got a pair of tits, and arent they lovely? Arent they great? You do too! Theyre great, youre in the club! In the meantime, she says, shes been working on expanding her mind rather than shrinking her bottom.
Ive suddenly got a ferocious need to learn things, she adds. Like, I listen to podcasts manically The New York Times and The Guardian and The Economist and TED Talks and Fresh Air. I need information. Im like, I just want to know as much as humanly possible. Which means that for all Khaleesi has given Clarke, Clarkes in the process of reciprocating. Khaleesi got a little something extra this year, you know what I mean? She got a little something else going on.
Raleigh Ritchie, Grey Worm of Game of Thrones, discusses first time getting drunk, meeting Peter Dinklage, and selling out a venue. Watch here.