Emilia Clarke speaks about shooting 'terrifying' bare scenes in Game Of Thrones
Clarke credits co-star Jason Momoa for protecting her during a scene in which Momoa’s character 'virtually rapes' her on their wedding night
Emilia Clarke, who played queen Daenerys Targaryen in Game Of Thrones, reveals that she felt uncomfortable acting in some of the show’s nude scenes.
The British actress joined the hit HBO series at the age of 23. Now, at 33, she appeared on actor Dax Shepard’s podcast, Armchair Expert, where she spoke about the “terrifying” nude scenes in a show known for its explicit portrayal of violence and sex.
“I took the job and then they sent me the scripts and I was reading them, and I was like, ‘Oh, there’s the catch’!” said Clarke. “But I’d come fresh from drama school and I approached it as a job: if it’s in the script then it’s clearly needed. This is what this is and I’m going to make sense of it and that’s what I’m going to do and everything’s going to be cool.”
Clarke said she had “imposter syndrome times a million” as someone who’d been on a film set twice before she joined Game Of Thrones.
“I’ve never been on a film set like this before. … and I’m now on a film set completely naked with all of these people, and I don’t know what I’m meant to do, and I don’t know what’s expected of me, and I don’t know what you want, and I don’t know what I want. … Regardless of there being nudity or not, I would have spent that first season thinking I’m not worthy of requiring anything. I’m not worthy of needing anything at all,” she said.
Clarke credits her co-star Jason Momoa for his role in protecting her throughout the process, which includes a season one scene in which Momoa’s character, Khal Drogo, “virtually rapes” Daenerys on their wedding night.
“He was crying more than I was,” said Clarke.
“It’s only now that I realize how fortunate I was with that, because that could have gone many, many, many different ways,” she said. “Because Jason had experience – he was an experienced actor who had done a bunch of stuff before coming on to this – he was like, ‘Sweetie, this is how it’s meant to be, this is how it’s not meant to be, and I’m going to make sure that that’s the fucking gaze.’ He was always like, ‘Can we get her a fucking robe? She’s shivering!’ … He was so kind and considerate and cared about me as a human being.”
Since her time on Game of Thrones, Clarke says said she’s grown to become “a lot more savvy” in making it clear what she’s comfortable with, along with the level of nudity that she believes is needed in a scene.
“I’ve had fights on set before where I’m like, ‘No, the sheet stays up,’ and they’re like, ‘You don’t wanna disappoint your Game of Thrones fans.’ And I’m like, ‘Fuck you.’”
