Emilia Clarke thought she was "going to die" on the ‘Game of Thrones’ set after suffering two aneurysms.
The 32-year-old actress – who played Daenerys Targaryen in the hit HBO fantasy drama, which came to a dramatic end on Sunday (19.05.19) – underwent major surgery in 2011 and again in 2013 after she developed a subarachnoid haemorrhage, a form of stroke caused by a ruptured aneurysm, and has now said she "bulldozed through" filming of seasons two and three, despite feeling "worried and fearful every day".
She said: "Every day I would fight my own demons of thinking, ‘You’re sick, you can’t do this. You’re tired, give in. Stop.’ I just bulldozed through. There were a couple of seasons where I just questioned everything and struggled through everything and felt a tremendous amount of guilt at not being able to fully inhabit this role of a lifetime that I was given when I had many friends who were still knocking on casting directors’ doors. It left me fatigued and exhausted and anxious and worried and fearful every day."
Emilia says she "didn’t ever say anything" when things got too much for her on set, even when she "thought [she] was dying".
She added: "The first couple of seasons we would film in hot countries a lot, and we would film in quarries and other places that were incredibly unforgiving with regards to heat. We had very long days, and I’m in this enormous wig over a bald cap glued on to my head. You’re paranoid you’re going to die all the time, because you’ve had two brain haemorrhages. I’d feel incredibly faint and want to pass out. I got headaches and thought I was dying. But I just didn’t ever say anything."
The beauty used to get help from members of the show’s styling team in "moments of extreme stress", but she still refused to let anyone know what she was going through.
Speaking to The New Yorker, she said: "In moments of extreme stress, my fear of dying was dialled up to a million. There were many moments where I would just take one of my hair or makeup girls aside and just go, ‘I think I’m dying, and I’m not. Can you just hold my hand? Could you just look at me and tell me that I’m all right?’ And they would look at me like I was mad and try and help me breathe through it."
Emilia Clarke thought she would ‘die’ after aneurysms
