Featured Image Credit: CBS / HBO
Topics: Game of Thrones, Emilia Clarke, Health, TV, Celebrity
Joshua Nair
Topics: Game of Thrones, Emilia Clarke, Health, TV, Celebrity
Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke once feared she'd be fired from the hit show after she nearly died from a brain injury.
The British actor, who is best known for playing Daenerys Targaryen in the HBO fantasy drama TV series, suffered two brain aneurysms, and recently, she said that she'd feared that her career on the show was in jeopardy.
The GOT star was finishing up a work out in a North London gym in 2011 when she began to feel quite unwell.
She said in a piece for the New Yorker in 2019 that she'd 'tried to will away the pain and the nausea' at first.
"I said to myself, 'I will not be paralysed'," she revealed, while continuing to move her fingers and toes and recall lines from the show to prove to herself that she was okay.
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A scan showed that she was suffering from a subarachnoid haemorrhage, a life-threatening type of stroke.
She then underwent surgery and eventually recovered, however, she went through a second brain haemorrhage in 2013, while she was still acting on the show's second season.
Clarke previously told CBS Sunday Morning: "The first time it was difficult, with the second one I found it much harder to stay optimistic.
"[I coped with it as a] a day to day thing. I definitely went through a period of being... down - putting it mildly.
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"The second one, there was a bit of my brain that actually died. If a part of your brain doesn't get blood to it for a minute, it will just no longer work. It's like you short circuit. So, I had that."
And recently, the 37-year-old spoke about how hard it was to return to work after her brain injuries in an interview with the Big Issue.
"When you have a brain injury, because it alters your sense of self on such a dramatic level, all of the insecurities you have going into the workplace quadruple overnight," she said.
"The first fear we all had was: 'Oh my god, am I going to get fired? Am I going to get fired because they think I'm not capable of completing the job?'"
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She was back in work just weeks after her first haemorrhage, but spoke about her fear of dying of another haemorrhage because of the pressure around her work.
"Well, if I'm going to die, I better die on live TV," she added.
Thankfully, she fully recovered from her injuries and went on to star in films such as Me Before You, Solo and Last Christmas. She also had a starring role in Marvel's Secret Invasion in 2023.
Clarke and her mother, Jennifer Clarke, set up a charity to assist people with brain injuries, called SameYou.
The mother and daughter were made MBES earlier this year for setting the charity, which supports those who have experienced brain injuries.