Actor Emilia Clarke has given multiple indications that she wasn’t fully on board with the direction her Game of Thrones character, Daenerys Targaryen was sent in the show’s final season. Daenerys, whose transformation into a cold-hearted villain divided the fanbase, was played by Emilia in all eight seasons of the hit HBO drama.
With the release of the book Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon: Game of Thrones and the Official Untold Story of the Epic Series, new anecdotes about the show are coming to light. An excerpt shared by WinterIsComing.net reveals that Emilia pushed back against certain decisions made by showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss.
“There was a number of times I was like, ‘Why are you giving me that note?’ While I am quite consistently a ‘How can I help?’ kind of person, there were a few moments where I was like, ‘Don’t tell me what to do with my girl. I know what to do!’ It’s like Daenerys’s calling card became cold expressionlessness. I always wanted to infuse that with some humanity because no one’s consistently like that. I would sometimes fight back a little: ‘I get that she has to be steely and unforgiving and a powerful force. But in this moment she’s also a goddam human being. So I’m going to give you that and I really pray that you take that in the edit.’”
Emilia had previously told The Sunday Times in an interview, “I knew how I felt [about the ending] when I first read it, and I tried, at every turn, not to consider too much what other people might say. But I did always consider what the fans might think — because we did it for them, and they were the ones who made us successful, so it’s just polite, isn’t it?” and continued later, saying, “It was all about the set pieces. I think the sensational nature of the show was, possibly, given a huge amount of airtime because that’s what makes sense.”
Speaking about Dany’s transformation from a heroic figure to a villainous one, the actor added, “Yeah, I felt for her. I really felt for her. And yeah, was I annoyed that Jon Snow didn’t have to deal with something? He got away with murder — literally.”
Game of Thrones concluded its run with a poorly received final season in 2019. However, the season received 32 nominations at the 71st Primetime Emmy Awards, the most for a single season of television in history. It won 12, including one for Outstanding Drama Series.
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