Cover Story: Emilia Clarkes Solo Flight

On a rainy April afternoon, Emilia Clarke enters the bright, airy Egyptian galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art the way so many movie-lovers before her have: quoting Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally. Adopting the unsourceable accent Crystal uses opposite Meg Ryan in a famously improvised scene filmed in this very room, Clarke starts stuttering, “Pah-pah-paprikash.” Our amused if bewildered guide, too young to get the reference, adds the 1989 rom-com to her list of movie recommendations from Clarke, who has already gushed about the 2017 religious drama Novitiate. Chuckling over this unlikely double feature, Clarke assures her, “You have two incredible movies coming your way.”

One reference the guide does get: Game of Thrones, the HBO juggernaut which stars Clarke as its most unstoppable heroine, Daenerys Targaryen. In fact, the very tour were taking, put together by a company called Museum Hack, is based on the series, and offers a fan-friendly survey of the sometimes inscrutable displays of the Met. You dont have to be an art historian (our guide is an aspiring actress) to understand what Greek fire, Damascus blades, heraldry, mutilated men, samurai kamon, the dragon-born St. Margaret of Antioch, and an early female pharaoh have to do with wildfire, Valyrian steel, house words, and Clarkes world-famous alter ego.

And yet, despite her fame, Clarke has managed to spend a full half-hour in the museum sponging up our guides trivia without being spotted. For years, Clarkes brown hair let her hide in plain sight, but she recently bleached it an icy Targaryen blond. So, why the invisibility? Maybe its her height. “We both have a thing about our stature not quite being what people expect,” says her co-star Kit Harington, who, at five feet eight, has six inches on Clarke. Maybe its her outfit—the gray overcoat, cream sweater, and jeans are a far cry from the cloaks and armor of Thrones. Or maybe its her bright, decidedly non-intimidating personality. “When Im goofing around with my pals, Im unrecognizable,” she says. Harington calls Clarkes humor “naughty,” and its certainly true that her informal, expletive-laced banter is a far cry from Daeneryss imperious tones. “Sometimes, if Im in a really bad mood,” Clarke notes, “people are like, Khaleesi! ”

Finally, the spell of anonymity breaks, thanks to a display of competitiveness worthy of Game of Thrones. Our guide has challenged us to photograph as many birds and dragons as we can find in the paintings and sculptures on the tour, and Clarke is approaching the task with her usual effervescent zeal. Standing in the shadow of a stone Hatshepsut, one of patriarchal Egypts first female pharaohs, she triumphantly displays one of the winged targets she has captured on her phone. “This little birdie: Boom!” she shouts, her voice ricocheting off the stone walls. A pair of young men look over, then descend, and, in thick French accents, ask for a photo. Clarkes triumphant grin tightens into a polite, distant smile.

There it is: the face of Daenerys of the House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, the Unburnt, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons, who, over the course of seven seasons, has climbed from powerless pawn to resolute conqueror, forcing one rival after another to “bend the knee” or burn. As Daenerys has risen, so has Clarke, morphing from a struggling actress and part-time cater waiter to an international superstar and symbol of feminine fierceness. That journey is “important and inspiring—particularly now, in our climate,” says her close friend Rose Leslie, who played the wildling warrior Ygritte in early seasons of Game of Thrones. “Shes at the forefront of representing independent women.”

We still dont know if, as many expect, Daenerys Targaryen will win the right to rule the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, but we can be assured that Emilia Clarke will hang up her platinum wig for good when Game of Thrones ends its eight-season run, in 2019. Theres still a lot of filming and post-production work to be done, but Clarke has already shot her characters final on-screen moments. “It fucked me up,” she says. “Knowing that is going to be a lasting flavor in someones mouth of what Daenerys is . . .”

Clarke has good reason to feel unsettled. Letting go of a culture-defining television role can be liberating, to be sure, but it can also be deflating—or worse. Jon Hamm may always be seen as Don Draper; Sarah Michelle Gellar is forever Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Jennifer Aniston will never not be Rachel. Fortunately, Clarke approaches this pivotal transition with a stubborn insistence on behaving like a normal, grounded human being. And her upcoming credits suggest that shes greatly in demand beyond Westeros.

This month, Clarke, a self-described “achievement junkie,” joins the rapidly expanding Star Wars universe in Solo, a highly scrutinized origin story for Harrison Fords Han Solo. Her well-honed gift for concealing every detail about her work—“Everything in my life is a spoiler,” she says—helped her get into character. Director Ron Howard, a Game of Thrones fan, explains that Qira, Han Solos childhood friend turned unreliable ally, is secretive, slippery, and morally questionable—“a much different sort of a character” from Daenerys.

If Solo becomes a major hit, it will give Clarke a rare chance to leap cleanly from one spectacularly successful genre franchise to another. But even if it doesnt, she has no shortage of options. An active participant in Times Up, she has ambitious plans to write and produce her own material—and create new opportunities for other women in the industry. Discussing those issues, she begins to sound more like the fiery Daenerys. “It becomes harder to separate you from the role when youve been with it so long,” she admits.

Eight years ago, Dan Weiss and David Benioff were in trouble. Their pilot for Game of Thrones, an adaptation of George R. R. Martins popular A Song of Ice and Fire book series, was a disaster. Along with re-shoots, the pair were looking to re-cast a few key roles, including the pivotal part of Daenerys Targaryen. Tall, willowy, and fair-haired, Tamzin Merchant, the actress originally cast as Khaleesi, was a far more conventional match for the character on the page. The second time around, Weiss and Benioff took a fresh look at the character.

“Emilia was the only person we saw—and we saw hundreds—who could carry the full range that Daenerys required,” the pair explained in tandem via e-mail. “Young actors arent often asked to play a combination of Joan of Arc, Lawrence of Arabia, and Napoleon.”

When Clarke started on the series, Daenerys was downtrodden, occasionally objectified, and stranded in a subplot that kept the character geographically distant from the main story and the actress isolated from most of her co-stars. “I was cut off from the rest of the cast,” Clarke says. Over the years, as the famously cutthroat Thrones has thinned its sprawling ensemble, Clarke has risen in the ranks, snagging the shows flashiest, most empowering moments.

In an era when network and streaming platforms alike are struggling to get anyone to tune in, Game of Thrones has become one of the last surviving holdovers from the must-see TV era. For a handful of weeks every year, HBO owns Sunday nights, with devotees watching live to avoid spoilers at the office Monday morning. Clearing its own very high ratings bar, Thrones commanded an average of 32.8 million viewers in its 2017 season. Its 38 wins make it the most-awarded scripted-TV series in Emmy history.

That glaring spotlight has made Daenerys a cultural touchstone—not to mention a costume-party staple, with Madonna, Katy Perry, Khloé Kardashian, and Kristen Bell among her many famous impersonators. At a recent charity auction, Brad Pitt offered six figures to spend an evening with Clarke and Harington, only to be outbid. Last year, Daenerys finally powered into the heart of the series, earning long-awaited screen time with Harington and the rest of the surviving stars. Clarke, who has been nominated three times for best supporting actress at the Emmys, may soon be gunning for lead honors.

“Everything in my life is a spoiler,” Clarke says.

Clarkes upbringing in the bucolic countryside an hour outside of London couldnt be farther from the dysfunctional family dynamics that forged the orphaned Daenerys. Emilias mother, Jennifer, is a businesswoman who currently runs the Anima Foundation, a charity aimed at raising awareness of specialty brain-injury care, and her father, Peter, was a theatrical sound engineer who prized education above all else. “Your bookshelf should be bigger than your TV,” he liked to remind Emilia and her older brother, Bennett. “My mum, my brother, my dad, and I would sit around a table, and my happiest place was just discussing stuff,” Emilia says. “I really value intelligence. Im one of the very fortunate few people who really likes their family. I just like hanging out with them.”

Clarke isnt the first woman in her family to engage in high-stakes identity juggling. Her maternal grandmother wore light makeup to disguise the fact that she was half Indian, owing to her mothers very secret affair with a mysterious man from the colonial subcontinent. “The fact that [my grandmother] had to hide her skin color, essentially, and try desperately to fit in with everyone else mustve been incredibly difficult,” Clarke says. “So, yeah: history of fighters.”

Emilias parents saved up to send her to a pair of upper-crust boarding schools—Rye St. Antony and St. Edwards, both in Oxford—but she never felt at home with her much wealthier classmates. “I didnt really fit in, like everybody who ever went to school ever.” So she channeled her energy into performing. She was rejected the first time she applied to acting school, but eventually Drama Centre London claimed her from the waiting list when another student broke her leg and dropped out. There, she finally found the “artistically inclined” friends who would keep her grounded amid the circus of international fame.

The jet-setting Clarke clings tightly to her roots even as her life and career take her ever farther from the Home Counties. For one thing, she recently got her brother a gig in the Thrones camera department. “This job can be so alienating,” she says. “Youre in a trailer by yourself. Youre in a car by yourself. Youre in a plane. Youre in a plane. Youre in a plane. Thats what success looks like if youre an actor. Success looks like being alone.” Clarke stays sharp by devouring “nerdy” podcasts on a range of topics from politics to science. “Shes so informed,” says Rose Leslie. “She has an opinion on every topic.”

Clarkes father passed away in 2016 after a long battle with cancer. At the time, Emilia was in the U.S. shooting the upcoming thriller Above Suspicion and couldnt break away to say her final good-byes. “It still sucks. Grief sucks. He doesnt know what Im doing now,” she says. “Thats it before I start crying.” After a couple of romances with famous men—first, Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, then, reportedly, actor Jai Courtney, a brief souvenir from her Terminator Genisys shoot—Clarke swore off dating actors. In fact, she hasnt been romantically linked in some time. When Solo premiered at Cannes, in May, she had hoped to walk the red carpet with her brother, and her goal in general is to keep her relationships out of the news. “The guys that Ive met in my life that are dicks, I voluntarily walk the fuck away from them,” she says. “Thats just bad taste. People shouldnt know about those choices.”

Clarke usually appears in public with various non-famous “mates” from her drama-school days. Her “perma-plus-one” is Lola Frears, daughter of director Stephen Frears. “I aint got me no celebrity friends,” Clarke says. “My squad? They dont let me get away with anything. Theres not a lot of actors I relate to.” Leslie, a rare exception to Emilias rule, confirms that Clarkes longtime friends keep her in check: “There would be a ticking off or a bollocking if they felt she was no longer the lovely lady that they have always known.”

The Star Wars tradition of featuring morally upright heroines, among them Carrie Fishers General Leia, Daisy Ridleys Rey, and Felicity Joness Jyn Erso, was part of what drew Emilia Clarke to the role of Qira in Solo, but it was the chance to break the mold that really sold her. “Were going to hit you with a character that could very easily well be a dude, because you question her motives,” she says, sitting in a back corner of the Mets no-frills cafeteria snacking on a pear and sipping English-breakfast tea from a paper cup. “Thats really fucking exciting in the Star Wars universe, because that has never happened.”

Before accepting the Solo role, Clarke had to ask Game of Thrones show-runners Weiss and Benioff for permission to complicate their plans for a final season by adding a demanding Star Wars filming schedule to the mix. They didnt hesitate. “Solo felt like a great fit that would let her show off her versatility,” Weiss and Benioff explained. “Also, we figured shed probably get to shoot a ray gun. Ray guns are something we just cant offer, unfortunately.”

Swapping dragons for ray guns, Emilia Clarke was eager to prove her mettle in a whole new galaxy. But that plan hit a snag when the Solo production fell spectacularly and publicly apart. “Im not gonna lie,” Clarke says. “I struggled with Qira quite a lot. I was like: Yall need to stop telling me that shes “film noir,” because that aint a note. ” Frustrated by the lack of direction, she turned to Solos father-and-son screenwriters, Lawrence and Jon Kasdan, for support. Then, four and a half months into shooting, co-directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller exited the project, citing “creative differences.” Production was put on hold until they were replaced by Ron Howard, a longtime friend of franchise creator George Lucass. With a brand-new director and an ambitious re-shoot schedule—Clarke reluctantly agrees when I call those first months “a high-budget dress rehearsal”—Solo still had to hit its opening date, in May of the following year.

“I get fucking paid the same as my guy friends. We made sure of that.”

Clarke says Howards arrival “saved” the movie: “All hail to [Lucasfilm president] Kathy [Kennedy] for hiring Ron.” Slipping into a mocking impression of herself, Clarke re-enacts a self-pitying therapy session with Howard over a private meal they shared before resuming production. “He even feigned enthusiasm!” she says. “I know for a fact he had that discussion with everybody. I think we all came to set feeling like his favorite. It makes for a really happy load of actors, with our egos.”

Howard recalls that dinner a bit differently. The former child star of The Andy Griffith Show saw in Clarke “the kind of pragmatism and a can-do spirit that often comes from people who have cut their teeth doing television.”

“I know some of how tough it was for her,” Harington says. “But shes pretty tough as well.”

Clarke wasnt privy to everything that led up to the director swap, but she wasnt entirely surprised, either. “When it comes to that amount of money, youre almost waiting for that to happen. Money fucks us all up, doesnt it? Theres so much pressure. Han Solo is a really beloved character. This is a really important movie for the franchise as a whole. Its a shit ton of money. A shit ton of people. A shit ton of expectations.”

Solo wasnt the first troubled blockbuster to test Clarkes resilience. If anything, the production of 2015s Terminator Genisys was more chaotic. She watched frequent Thrones director Alan Taylor get “eaten and chewed up on Terminator. He was not the director I remembered. He didnt have a good time. No one had a good time.” When the film underperformed at the box office, she was “relieved” to not have to return for any sequels. News of the rocky production traveled, and Clarke says the crew on the famously disastrous Fantastic Four, which was filming nearby, even had jackets made that read, AT LEAST WERE NOT ON TERMINATOR. “Just to give you a summary,” she says, laughing.

Rumors spreading between film sets is one thing, but the Solo tumult was covered exhaustively in the trades and on fan sites, adding another layer of pressure to an already pressurized project. “I hope we did it good, then, because people have all this gossip,” Clarke says. “I dont want people to go, Thats the bit where it all went wrong. Thats the bit, I know it. I just really hope that people have a good time, that its good, and, you know, selfishly, that Im not shit and that people dont write reviews going, Oh my God, thats, like, the worst acting Ive ever seen in my life. Wow. How did they give her the part? ”

For all her anxieties about how her performance will go over, Clarke and I are both energized by the Solo footage weve seen. Clarkes easy chemistry with Donald Glover, who plays fan favorite Lando Calrissian, is evident from their very first on-screen meeting. And though her shifting allegiances mean she has to play a range of emotions opposite Alden Ehrenreichs Han Solo, she endows every twist with an undercurrent of romantic possibility. Tonally closer to the Indiana Jones movies than to, say, Rogue One, Solo marks the franchises return to lighthearted, fast-paced capers.

Clarke—who spends most Thrones battles on the backs of her C.G.I. dragons—was eager to jump into the fray with some hand-to-hand combat. “She had to deal with quite a large sword and some pretty elaborate fight choreography, and she made it look easy,” Ehrenreich says. With all the re-shoots and reconfigured plotting, she also had to fight to keep some of her favorite moments in. “That is going to be badass as fuck,” she told the filmmakers of a showstopping Qira moment that made the cut. “Dont forget your audience.”

Long before they shared a scene together, Clarke and Harington had become friends thanks to their time on the Game of Thrones promotional circuit. It was through Harington that Clarke met Rose Leslie. An adept mimic, Clarke impersonates a “smitten” Harington mooning over his on-screen lover and future real-life fiancée in the early days of the show: “Theres the best human in the world. Shes called Rose.”

Clarke has a teasing relationship with Harington. “Ill tell him, Kit, stop being a dick—stop being so grumpy. Like I would with my brother.” And as the two transition in these final seasons from real-life friends to partners in TVs biggest romance (albeit one complicated by incest), the ribbing has only increased. “If youve known someone for six years, and theyre best friends with your girlfriend, and youre best friends with them,” Harington says, “there is something unnatural and strange about doing a love scene. Well end up kissing and then were just pissing ourselves with laughter because its so ridiculous.”

“Shes goofy,” Weiss and Benioff confirm. “We have tried to let some of Emilias humor and light seep into Daenerys whenever possible. Who says conquerors cant be funny?” A memorable Season Four conversation between Daenerys and her right-hand woman, Missandei, concerning a eunuchs “pillar and stones,” for instance, is much more Clarke than Targaryen. Sadly, its unclear how much space there will be in the shows climactic final season for bawdy, Clarke-ish humor. “Im doing all this weird shit,” Clarke says. “Youll know what I mean when you see it.”

In the final episodes of a show with a body count as high as Game of Thrones, Clarke never really knows when she might be filming her last moments with a member of the cast. Shes also shooting for the first time with several of the shows top stars, including Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams, who play the formidable Stark sisters.

Clarke is well aware that the strong women of the series are leaving some kind of imprint on the culture, but shes saving up all her big-picture reflections on Daenerys for later: “This is going to be a Band-Aid that Im going to rip off.” To help with that process, she started keeping a daily journal of her last season. With cell phones banned from the set due to security concerns, its her best hope of chronicling the final days of Daenerys. Selfies are off limits, but Clarke has asked set photographer Helen Sloan to snap the occasional behind-the-scenes photo. Both the journal and the photos, Clarke hints, may be available to the shows fans someday.

Clarke is unsurprisingly, and contractually, evasive when it comes to specifics of the concluding six episodes. Heavy hints in the most recent season indicate that, in addition to contending with the usual climactic end-of-the-world crises, Daenerys will also be grappling with more intimate parenthood and family issues. Here, Clarke and her on-screen alter ego may have something in common. Friends like Leslie and Harington are settling down to build their own families (“Their wedding is going to be siiiiick,” Clarke says), and an old schoolmate recently made Clarke godmother to a highly photogenic baby boy who makes regular appearances on her Instagram account. She lights up when talking about him.

Talking about her own parents evokes other emotions. The wounds from the loss of her father are still fresh, but her mother remains an inspiration. If all goes according to plan, its Jennifer Clarke who will provide the map for Clarkes very first post-Thrones steps. After the show ends, Clarke plans to re-create a road trip her mother took in 1972 to Yosemite and the redwoods of Northern California. With best friend and scriptwriter Lola Frears by her side, Clarke intends to spend part of the trip working on ideas for new projects. Her agents offered to take these ideas to “guys” with writing experience, but her answer to that was pure Daenerys: “No, Im going to take it to me.”

Citing Reese Witherspoon, Greta Gerwig, and other actresses turned creators as inspiration, Clarke says she wants to work with as many female filmmakers as she can. As for the conventional industry wisdom that women cant work together without infighting? “Its fucking bullshit. Its so annoying.” An active member of Times Up, Clarke negotiated with Weiss and Benioff in 2014 to ensure she maintained parity with her male counterparts. She and four co-stars—Harington, Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister), Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister), and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister)—reportedly each landed $300,000 per episode, a dazzling figure that skyrocketed to half a million per episode for the final two seasons. “I get fucking paid the same as my guy friends,” Clarke says. “We made sure of that.”

And while Clarke would be thrilled to have her own Lady Bird or Big Little Lies, thats not all shes after. She says shes “desperate” to make documentaries and shine a light on underserved causes. “Thats the shit that gets me going personally.” Inspired by her fathers cancer ordeal, Clarke is especially passionate about the risks Brexit poses to the U.K.s National Health Service, and she was recently named ambassador to the Royal College of Nursing. “Thats something I have in common with Dae-nerys,” she says suddenly, after several hours of explaining all the reasons she and her character are nothing alike. “I really feel for people and I want to help them. Not to sound too much like Oprah Winfrey.” She pauses, and thinks again. “Fuck that, Im gonna sound like Oprah and Im going to be proud of it.”

In the midst of the twin tornadoes of Star Wars and Game of Thrones, Clarke acknowledges that most of her choices these days are “studio choices.” And if Solo is a hit, Clarke could be working for Lucasfilm for years to come. But Harington sees something else in her future: “Shes done, far more than me or most people in the cast, these very high-budget, big-hitting blockbusters. Hopefully Star Wars continues for her and she does more of them. But I think shes an incredibly talented actor, and I would love to see her do something which is a more focused character piece, because the ones shes done are brilliant.” Clarkes effervescent performance in 2016s romantic weepy Me Before You—a surprise hit at the box office—hints at what shes capable of.

Clarke wants to stretch herself, and explore a new-media landscape where creators no longer have to rely on large companies in order to get their projects made. “Everyone can. Get your iPhone out. Lets do something. You know what I mean?” And with 17 million followers on Instagram, Clarke has the power to make and launch her own projects. Her recent Thrones-themed fund-raising Instagram video for the Royal College of Nursing Foundation racked up more than seven million views in just three days.

All that takes some of the heat off Clarke as she decides how to follow up roles in two of entertainments biggest franchises. She doesnt necessarily need another monster hit. She can afford to take her time, listen to herself, and do something that feels true to who she is—whoever that may be.

The most obvious evidence of the blur between Daenerys and Clarke is the relatively new shock of blond hair on her head. “I did this, which was frigging stupid,” she says, fingering the blunt-cut ends of her bleached hair.

When Kit Harington trimmed his famous curls in 2015, fans were led to believe his character, presumed dead, wouldnt be returning to the show the following season. (He did.) But Clarke swears her decision to go blonde has nothing at all to do with Daeneryss fate. “I got to a point where I said I just want to look in the mirror and see something different. So I was just like, Fuck it, its the last season. Im going to dye my hair blond. ” Clarke jokes that she immediately felt remorse and bought nine baseball caps online. “But they dont go with your outfit, so I dont wear them.”

Clarkes brown hair had always been her shield. The blond hair makes it harder to slip back into her pre-fame life. Partying with her old friends is tricky because their friends get “weird” about it, and she misses the mundane pleasures of, say, running errands for her mother. “What I get most heartbroken about is that those opportunities are almost completely gone.” Then she catches herself, and apologizes for moaning about the “champagne problems” of fame. “If I were reading this, Id be like, Cheer the fuck up, love. ”

Back underneath that statue at the Met, Emilia Clarke cranes her neck up to get a closer look at the ancient pharaohs smooth granite face. Hatshepsut wears a false beard that allowed her to pass more easily through the male-dominated world. Our guide points out a faint piece of carved string running up the pharaohs jawline holding the disguise in place. Thinking about it later, Clarke, who knows a thing or two about disguises, passing, alter egos, and powerful women, shakes her head in astonishment. “That is some fascinating shit right there.”

A towering granite Daenerys statue may never find its way into the hallowed halls of the Met, but its not clear Emilia Clarke wants that anyway. As we duck out of the Met a bit behind schedule, only to find that its raining and our sleek hired car is nowhere in sight, Clarke gamely suggests we rush out into the downpour and dive into the back of a yellow cab. Our driver doesnt recognize Clarke, either, which puts her at ease. Unsure how to get to where were going, he passes his smartphone to her so she can type the hotels address into his G.P.S. “Dont worry, mate,” she announces. “Your little app will get us there!” A satisfied smile plays on her face as the taxi twists, turns, and bumps along. She looks happier than she ever has riding a dragon.

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