Game Of Thrones star Emilia Clarke says Daenerys Targaryen saved her LIFE as playing the Dragon Queen kept her focused after brain aneurysms
Game Of Thrones star Emilia Clarke has admitted that playing Daenerys Targaryen saved her life after a life-threatening brain aneurysm.
The actress, 32, told Regina Hall in Variety's Actors On Actors series that playing the stoic Mother Of Dragons kept her in the right head-space after she was hospitalised during filming for the show's second series in 2011.
It comes after Emilia also reflected on Game Of Thrones' divisive series finale which aired last month, telling Regina it was 'surreal' and 'bizarre' to film her last scenes after nine years as Daenerys.
Truth: Game Of Thrones star Emilia Clarke has said playing Daenerys Targaryen saved her life after her 2011 brain aneurysm, in an interview with Regina Hall for Variety
In the candid interview, Emilia told Regina that playing Daenerys helped her to stay focused after she was rushed to hospital with two brain aneurysms, the second of which nearly killed her.
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The star said: 'Daenerys really saved my life, because it puts you in quite the headspace when you’ve had a brain injury.
'Walking in her shoes, I just put so much more into each season because it really was life or death and I felt so powerfully like she was saving me it was like I couldn’t see anything else, I could only see her.'
Strong: The actress admitted that playing the Mother Of Dragons kept her in the right head-space as she battled with her mental health after her hospitalisation
In March Emilia revealed she'd suffered two brain aneurysms in 2011 when she was just 24 years old.
Emilia also spoke to Regina about Game Of Thrones' long-awaited finale last month, which saw Daenerys meet a grisly end at the hands of her nephew and lover Jon Snow (played by Kit Harington).
Reflecting on the final days of the filming, the British star also confessed she didn't take anything from the set as a souvenir of the role, and found saying goodbye to the character an odd experience.
Open: In March Emilia revealed she'd suffered two brain aneurysms in 2011 when she was just 24 years old, the second of which nearly killed her (pictured above at the time)
Emilia said: 'I didn’t take anything from the set and I deeply regret it and I’m very annoyed and I’m really hoping that the show-runners will give me a dragon egg. Having it come to its final moment feels utterly surreal and completely bizarre and so much life has happened in the ten years...
'At first it was an existential crisis. Who am I? Where are my dragons? It felt really deeply emotional... You saw everyone’s truthful fragility as it ended… When it did finally end, it broke everyone.'
Read the full interview in the new issue of Variety, or watch Actors On Actors at Variety.com.
The End: It comes after Emilia also reflected on Game Of Thrones' divisive series finale which aired last month, telling Regina it was 'surreal' and 'bizarre' to film her last scenes
