Emilia Clarke: “That's my goal for the next decade of my life: to take it lightly. But it requires strength.”

“I’ll tell you the truth about the Emmys,” says Emilia Clarke brightly, as she proceeds to recount a catalogue of minor disasters at the 2026 ceremony.

“I’m walking down the red carpet, and my heel has unstitched the hem. We're already a bit late. I’ve got a publicist up my [Prada] dress with a safety pin. Then I cut myself on one of the beads on the bag, and this woman is like, [puts on American accent] ‘Do you know you have blood on your dress?!’ Then, seconds before I go on stage, I’m like, ‘I’m just going to run to the loo’. Went to the loo, started my period.” She cackles. “Didn't have anything, wasn't expecting it! I’m like, “Elle Fanning, have you got a tampon?'”

While some celebrities might refrain from telling us this story, Emilia Clarke is actively keen to share it. She loves reading interviews where her favourite stars are frank and open. “That's why I try to be as honest as I can, because I'm speaking for the me reading the piece,” she grins.

The story also serves to demonstrate that the actress has learned to laugh off last-minute surprises, despite lying awake and worrying about events in advance. “The night before – or two weeks before – I’m freaking out. But all of those things happen and I’m absolutely fine. Humour is like medicine. It fixes everything. Everything.”

Professionally, comedy and drama often go hand in hand for Clarke, with roles in memorable romcoms such as Me Before You, Last Christmas and, more recently, the spy series Ponies. Personally, it seems humour is getting her through the dramas of life, too. “As long as I just keep trying to have a giggle... That's my goal for the next decade of my life: to take it lightly. But it requires strength to find things funny. It really does.”

When we speak, a couple of weeks after Marie Claire’s London photoshoot, Emilia is pushing through post-Emmys jetlag and approaching her 40th birthday. ‘Pushing through’, in fact, has been a general theme of Clarke’s adult life so far. In 2011, shortly after filming season one of Game of Thrones, she had the first of two life-threatening brain hemorrhages. “Season one wrapped at Christmas; by February, I was in hospital with my first brain hemorrhage. So my first press tour was me on morphine.”

In 2013, it happened again. “The second time, I was like, "This just is really, really, really, really hard. And then my dad died, and that completely undid me.” Reflecting on it now, Clarke concludes that she spent a decade in shock. “When I was filming Game of Thrones, I had zero curiosity about myself, about the experience, about anything. I was just in shock. I froze – for 10 years.”

Clarke is brimming with resilience. Perhaps a tad too much for her own good. Filming one of the most intense, scrutinised series ever made, becoming globally famous as the Mother of Dragons, all while experiencing the kind of personal trauma most of us hopefully only have nightmares about… she prevailed. “I was just like, ‘just keep going’. So then, when [Game of Thrones] stopped, all of these feelings came and took over me. COVID happened, it was a perfect storm.”

Has she emerged stronger? “Oh hell, yeah. I’m grateful for all of it,” says Clarke, emphatically. “Once you are given time after the hurt, you've been given a superpower, and that superpower is empathy.”

She describes connecting with people immediately if they have experienced brain injuries or grief, and being more able to speak out in difficult situations. “It’s so scary to be completely in your feels, and it's not always appropriate, obviously… I’m someone who's very anti-conflict, but whatever the issue is in the room, I'll just say it. ‘Sorry, guys, gonna have to talk about this now.’”

Clarke has also become more intentional about her career choices, embracing what she can control and acknowledging what she can’t. “You can try to develop some kind of strategy, but the only thing that anyone sees is the final cut. That's something that, unless you're Meryl Streep, you don't have any control over,” she shrugs. “So you can say yes to a project, and within three weeks of being on set, be like, ‘This isn't what I signed up for, and I'm in it now, so I can't turn around and change it…”

Having fallen in love with acting as a child, Clarke’s first on screen appearance was in 2009, in an episode of Doctors. In 2015, she played Sarah Connor in Terminator Genisys, and joined another iconic sci-fi series in 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story. “I think the first 10 years of my career, Game of Thrones aside, was just an exercise in me saying yes because I didn't know I could say no. Since then, I've become much more considered about my choices and about who it is that I'm working with. Because I want to want to go to work, and in my mind, the only way to do that is to work with people that you feel good about working with. Then if the job isn't successful, [at least] you had a good time.”

Clarke is clearly enthusiastic about her latest move: a switch to theatre. She lights up when she talks about preparing for her role in Plenty, at the prestigious National Theatre in London. “Getting to be on stage at the National, being directed by Richard Eyre in a David Hare play… I’m just buzzing!”

The actress also had a ball filming upcoming romantic drama Next Life, in which her character Ivy experiences two parallel storylines. It’s set in the London jazz scene, and Ivy is an aspiring singer who gets together with a musician (Edgar Ramirez) in one reality, and reunites with her boyfriend (Jack Farthing) in another. “I used to sing jazz when I was younger, so instantly I was like, ‘Yes!’”. Her character is funny and self-deprecating – unsurprising then to learn that Clarke brought a lot of herself to this semi-improvised role. “When I watched the film, I was like, ‘That's me!’”. Clarke already knew and loved the director, Drake Doremus, and says, “It was the happiest time of my life. I'm not even joking. It was London, and it was Christmas, and it was just heaven. I made some real, true friends.”

The actress is a regular journal writer (“I just give myself a talking to before I go to sleep”), and is careful to avoid social media. “I post and I ghost. I do not partake of Instagram at all because within 30 seconds I'm miserable… Have I seen a picture of myself at the Emmys? No!” she exclaims triumphantly. Real, in-person connections are what Clarke is after. “An algorithm isn't going to keep you warm at night. It's not going to give you your wildest dreams. It's not gonna make you laugh. It's not gonna support you.”

Does she feel social media compounds the pressure on women to look a certain way? “The expectations of image across the board, like for men and for women, is just completely untenable,” she says, with notable animation. “You want us to look the same? You want to just be a population of the same face and the same body? Come on, we're human! We're gonna change.”

On the gender issue, she says, “The difference, I think, is that still we in a society are going to criticize women faster than we will criticize men.” It does seem to be a fate that more befalls females though, to struggle with getting meaningful roles in their 50s and 60s. “Yeah, and that keeps me up at night. I try and work out how not to place my sense of worth on other people’s sense of expectations or views. And it’s really hard to do it. The key to complete misery is comparison. I'm not saying I don't do it, but I try and catch myself, and I try [to] find strength in who I am.”

Thoughtful, funny, self-aware, Clarke has clearly come a long way since that “frozen” decade, though she doesn’t pretend she’s got it all sewn up. She’s learning to laugh off the present, but the future is proving harder to rationalise. “I’m unhealthily obsessed with what is to come,” she admits. Mention the phrase “self-love” and she counters it with, “Well, self-acceptance. Some people find it difficult to get to the love bit.” How is she doing on the love bit? “I’m doing all right!” she laughs. “I’m getting there!”

Any last words for the Marie Claire readers? “Everyone who reads this magazine is absolutely fabulous.” And, as if we couldn’t love her more, “Now, I’m going to get into my pyjamas and sit on the sofa.”

Photographer: Juan KR
Stylist: Maria Barsoum
Managing Director: Hannah Almassi
Digital Director: Jennifer Dickinson
Fashion Director: Lily Russo Bah
Videographer: Jonathan Middleton
Make-Up: Brooke Turnbull
Hair: Shon Hyungsun Ju
Manicure: Ami Streets
Photo Assistants: Grant Hamilton, Andrew Magurran
Styling Assistant: Giovanna Piergallini
Second assistant: Julie Smirnakos
Production: Town Productions
Words: Anna Smith