Overview

Name: Emilia Isobel Euphemia Rose Clarke

Birthday: October 23, 1986

Birthplace: London, England, UK

Emilia is an English actress. She developed an interest in acting at a young age, and after graduating from secondary school she attended the renowned Drama Centre London. Following various small roles on television, Clarke's big break came in 2011 when she landed the role of Daenerys Targaryen in the HBO hit series Game of Thrones. Since then she has starred on Broadway and been cast in films like Solo: A Star Wars Story.

Early Life

Emilia grew up in Oxfordshire. Her father was a theatre sound engineer from Wolverhampton and her mother is the vice-president for marketing at a global management consultancy firm. Her interest in acting was sparked at the age of three after seeing the musical Show Boat, on which her father was working.

Emilia attended Rye St Antony School in Headington and St Edward's School in Oxford, which she left in 2005. After RADA, LAMDA, and Guildhall rejected her, she worked and travelled before entering Drama Centre London, from which she graduated in 2009.

Career

Clarke's early work includes two plays at St. Edward's, ten plays at Drama Centre London, the 2009 Company of Angels production of Sense, and two 2009 commercials for Samaritans. One of her first film roles was for a University of London students' short film. Her first television roles were Saskia Mayer in a 2009 episode of the British soap opera Doctors and Savannah in Syfy's 2010 film Triassic Attack.

Game of Thrones

In 2011, her breakthrough role came in when she was cast as Daenerys Targaryen in HBO's hit television series, Game of Thrones (2011).

Based on the series of novels by George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones was an immediate and massive hit and ran for eight wildly successful seasons before wrapping in May 2019. For her role in the show, Clarke won several awards and garnered multiple Emmy and Screen Actors Guild nominations.

She has received widespread praise for her portrayal of Daenerys, which traces an arc from frightened girl to empowered woman. Clarke stated, "One of the many things I love about Daenerys [from Game of Thrones (2011)] is she's given me an opportunity to fly the flag for young girls and women, to be more than just somebody's wife and somebody's girlfriend."

Interesting Facts

In a March 2019 article she wrote for The New Yorker, she revealed she had a subarachnoid haemorrhage caused by a ruptured aneurysm, in February 2011. She underwent urgent endovascular coiling surgery and subsequently suffered from aphasia; at one point she was unable to recall her own name. She had a second aneurysm surgically treated in 2013.

She auctioned a chance to watch an episode of Game of Thrones with her at the 2018 Sean Penn Charity Gala, which raised over $120,000 benefiting the J/P HRO & Disaster Relief Organizations.

In February 2018, she appeared at London's Centrepoint Awards, which celebrates the courage shown by homeless young people.[53] In April 2018, she was named ambassador to the Royal College of Nursing.

In 2019, following the announcement of the brain aneurysms she suffered in 2011 and 2013, Clarke launched SameYou. The charity aims to broaden neurorehabilitation access for young people after a brain injury or stroke.