Emilia Clarke was "flabbergasted" by Daenerys Targaryen’s death scene.
The 32-year-old actress was stunned when she received her script for the ‘Game of Thrones’ finale – which aired on Sunday (19.05.19) – and realised her alter ego’s lover Jon Snow (Kit Harington) stabbed her in the heart before she’d even taken the iron throne as she admitted it was a twist she didn’t expect.
Recalling her reaction, she said: "What, what, what, WHAT!? Because it comes out of f**king nowhere. I’m flabbergasted. Absolutely never saw that coming."
Emilia then "cried" and took herself off for five hours while she digested her character’s fate.
She continued to Entertainment Weekly: "I cried. And I went for a walk. I walked out of the house and took my keys and phone and walked back with blisters on my feet. I didn’t come back for five hours. I’m like, ‘How am I going to do this?’ "
Unlike Emilia, Kit didn’t read the script until the cast got together for a table read – and the actor broke down in tears when he reached the pivotal moment.
He recalled: "I looked at Emilia and there was a moment of me realising, ‘No, no…’ "
Emilia added: "He was crying. And then it was kind of great him not having read it."
While the actress was shocked by Daenerys’ brutal burning of King’s Landing and her fall from grace, she realised that showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff had been dropping hints for years as they sometimes asked her to play a scene differently than she would have expected for her heroic alter ego.
She said: "There’s a number of times I’ve been like: ‘Why are you giving me that note?’
"So yes, this has made me look back at all the notes I’ve ever had."
And the British star always expected the Mother of Dragons to die.
She said: "After 10 years of working on this show, it’s logical. Where else can she go? I tried to think what the ending will be. It’s not like she’s suddenly going to go, ‘OK, I’m gonna put a kettle on and put cookies in the oven and we’ll just sit down and have a lovely time and pop a few kids out.’ That was never going to happen. She’s a Targaryen.
"I thought she was going to die. I feel very taken care of as a character in that sense.
"It’s a very beautiful and touching ending. Hopefully, what you’ll see in that last moment as she’s dying is: There’s the vulnerability — there’s the little girl you met in season one. See? She’s right there. And now, she’s not there anymore…"
Emilia Clarke was ‘flabbergasted’ by script
