Emilia Clarke aka Danaerys Targaryen from HBO’s epic fantasy television series ‘Games of Thrones’ turned 34 on Friday. Fans from across the globe took to social media to wish the “Mother of Dragons”.
Clarke rose to fame in her breakthrough performance and became a household name for portraying Danaerys Targaryenin eight seasons (2011-2019) of GoT.
The British actress was also nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a drama series three times (2013, 2015, and 2016) and Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a drama series for the final season in 2019.
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Clarke was last seen playing Nina in Anya Reiss’ modernisation of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull play, directed by Jamie Lloyd, which was performed from March 2020 to May 2020 at Playhouse Theatre.
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Here are some lesser known facts about the star on her birthday:
- Much before her stardom, Clarke made her Broadway debut in 2013 as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. But the production closed after a month as it suffered low ticket sales.
- We all know about the role of Anastasia Steele in the blockbuster BDSM drama Fifty Shades of Grey, played by Dakota Johnson. The role was first offered to Clarke and she turned it down. According to Clarke, she did not want to be stuck in a pigeonhole that she struggled to get out of as she had already done nude scenes in GOT. And there was a huge amount of nudity in Fifty Shades of Grey.
- Before Emilia’s career took off, she had worked six jobs to pay her rent. Emilia said, she did data entry for a while, waitressing and catering for a company before landing the ‘epic’ the Game of Thrones role.
- Emilia is also known as an adventure seeker and avid traveller. The actress travelled to India in 2019 with her Game of Thrones co-star Rose Leslie. Apart from that, Emilia has travelled to Southeast Asian destinations like Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.
- During the filming season of one of GoT, Clarke was diagnosed with multiple brain aneurysms. The then 24-years-old star had suffered a subarachnoid haemorrhage or bleeding in the space surrounding the brain. The second tumour was even larger than the first one and the star was almost on the verge of losing her life. Miraculously, the star fought and survived the haemorrhage.
- The recognition as ‘Mother of Dragons’ came to Emilia from Game of Thrones, but the role was originally offered to actress Tamzin Merchant. Yes, it is indeed hard to imagine anyone else slipping into the shoes of Daenerys, but Clarke replaced Tamzin Merchant before filming of the first season had started.