Daenerys will finally have scenes with [SPOILER] in season 8, and other tidbits

Speaking with Vanity Fair’s Joanna Robinson, Emilia Clarke discussed all things Emilia Clarke, from her role as Qi’ra in Solo: A Star Wars Story to how she keeps herself grounded in the midst of all her success. Of course, we’re here mostly for the Game of Thrones knowledge, about which Clarke was surprisingly forthcoming. She revealed, for example, that she’s already filmed Daenerys’ final scene:

"It fucked me up. Knowing that is going to be a lasting flavor in someone’s mouth of what Daenerys is…"

Keep in mind that Game of Thrones shoots everything out of sequence, so this doesn’t mean that Daenerys is dead or that Clarke is finished filming; she’s not. But Dany’s last scene is in the can, whatever it involves.

Clarke also confirmed that she’ll share scenes with cast members with whom she’s never filmed before, including Sophie Turner (Sansa) and Maisie Williams (Arya). Now that’s something to look forward to.

However, when it came to what Daenerys will actually do in season 8, Clarke was less forthcoming with specifics, although she did hint at something unexpected. When talking about the difficulty of bringing humor to Daenerys’ scenes, she did say that in season 8, “I’m doing all this weird shit. You’ll know what I mean when you see it.” Whoa.

As anyone who’s ever watched an interview with Clarke knows, she’s a naturally funny person, but it’s hard to bring that to a serious character like Daenerys, despite the best efforts of showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss. “She’s goofy,” they said of her. “We have tried to let some of Emilia’s humor and light seep into Daenerys whenever possible. Who says conquerors can’t be funny?” Robinson holds up a Daenerys-Missandei scene from season 4, one where Daenerys asks whether the Unsullied are eunuchs in the “pillars and stones” sense, as an example of a scene that draws from Clarke’s natural humor.

Beyond that, Benioff and Weiss have nothing but praise for Clarke. They were perfectly fine with complicating her season 8 shooting schedule by signing on to play Qi’ra in Solo: A Star Wars Story (“[W]e figured she’d probably get to shoot a ray gun. Ray guns are something we just can’t offer, unfortunately.”) and believed in her talent right from her first audition. “Emilia was the only person we saw—and we saw hundreds—who could carry the full range that Daenerys required. Young actors aren’t often asked to play a combination of Joan of Arc, Lawrence of Arabia, and Napoleon.”

Speaking of Qi’ra, Clarke is eager for you to get a load of her when Solo drops this weekend. “We’re going to hit you with a character that could very easily well be a dude, because you question her motives,” she said. “That’s really fucking exciting in the Star Wars universe, because that has never happened.”

As someone who became famous playing a powerful woman, Clarke sparked to that aspect of Qi’ra, and cares deeply about gender parity in her professional life. She rejects outright the notion that women in the film industry can’t work together without infighting (“It’s fucking bullshit. It’s so annoying.”), fought to keep some of her favorite Solo moments in the film after studio swapped out directors, and made sure that she was paid the same as her Game of Thrones costars like Peter Dinklage and Kit Harington. “I get fucking paid the same as my guy friends. We made sure of that.”

There’s a quite a bit more to the interview, and you can read the whole thing over at Vanity Fair. A few more highlights:

• Clarke on why she often doesn’t get recognized in public, even with her Daenerys-blonde hair: at 5’2”, she’s shorter than a lot of fans expect. Ditto costar Kit Harington (Jon Snow). “We both have a thing about our stature not quite being what people expect.”
• On the impending wedding between Harington and Rose Leslie (Ygritte): “Their wedding is going to be siiiiick.”
• Originally, The LEGO Movie directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were directing Solo, but Disney subbed in Ron Howard partway through, resulting in lots of reshoots. Clarke was very happy with Howard’s work, and offered this vague, cheerfully vulgar comment on why the switch happened: “When it comes to that amount of money, you’re almost waiting for that to happen. Money fucks us all up, doesn’t it? There’s so much pressure. Han Solo is a really beloved character. This is a really important movie for the franchise as a whole. It’s a shit ton of money. A shit ton of people. A shit ton of expectations.”
• In addition to acting, Clarke is currently serving as an ambassador to Britain’s Royal College of Nursing, something she’s very passionate about. “That’s something I have in common with Daenerys. I really feel for people and I want to help them. Not to sound too much like Oprah Winfrey…Fuck that, I’m gonna sound like Oprah and I’m going to be proud of it.”

Solo opens this weekend.

Next: George Lucas visited the set of Game of Thrones season 8

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