Emilia Clarke talks Daenerys, Sansa, and season 8

As you might have noticed, Game of Thrones cast members have been giving a lot of interviews lately. Season 8 is only a month away, and it’s time to hit the press junket. Emilia Clarke, the Mother of Dragons herself, has been a whirlwind of press, and this new interview with Harper’s Bazaar may be the most extensive yet. Let’s find out how it feels to be Daenerys of the House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, The Unburnt, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Queen of Meereen, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Protector of the Realm, Lady Regent of the Seven Kingdoms, Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons.

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Dany will kick off season 8 by arriving at Winterfell; we’ve already seen some early footage of her meeting Sansa Stark for the first time. “She starts feeling pretty cocksure and confident, and then stuff happens,” Clarke teased.

So things may get a little awkward for Daenerys, but for Clarke, the experience of shooting on a set and with characters she’d rarely or never interacted with was exhilarating. “It’s really surreal,” she said. “I mean, you play into what it feels like for the character as well, because it’s new and it’s odd, and you’re coming into someone else’s turf and you’ve got a lot of actors that you know really well, who were like, ‘This is our home.’ Then you come in and you’re like, “I know this only from the television; I’ve never been in this space here before in my life.'”

"But also I must admit for the character, I felt it. I felt with every one of those moments that obviously the show is packed to the gills with. I felt for her. I was like, “Yes! Here we are! We’re in, we’re speaking with Sansa, we are that much closer.” It felt great."

Clarke even described what shooting a scene with Sophie Turner (Sansa) was like:

"It was lovely. She’s a really good friend of mine, so it was very fun, it was very silly, it was very then like, ‘Oh! We’re doing this now, we’re having like an actor discussion,’ as opposed to just me and Sophie.’ With all of those scenes meeting new people, it felt like every day was a little party.”"

The season 8 premiere will see Jon and Dany ride into Winterfell with an army of Unsullied and Dothraki, plus two full-grown dragons. Not only will Daenerys meet Sansa for the first time, but she’ll also meet the rest of his family, as well as the lords who support him.

Dressing to impress all these new characters is important, and it’s something costume designer Michele Clapton has been killing since the beginning. “[Clapton] really takes each character’s journey and reflects that in the clothing,” Clarke said. “Every single piece that I put on made sense for the scene that I was in, and made sense with the place that the character’s in at that time.”

"There’s a real throughline for this particular season, there’s a real arc and I feel like fans, like hardcore fans, will clock what’s happening within the reflection of the clothing. There’s definitely a story to tell there."

We’ve already seen that Daenerys has added a lot more red color to her wardrobe this year. Watch this space.

And while we’re talking about costumes, we might as well discuss hair. Clarke is a natural brunette, but she dyed her hair peroxide blonde for the final season of the show.

"That was really fun while it lasted, but my hair dyed to death during that process, then after a while I think I exhausted the look for as much as I can. Going back to brunette, when I first did it, I must’ve looked in the mirror and was like, “This girl? I walked away from this girl. She’s a different person from who I am now.” But now, my hair feels so much better for being brunette and it’s a bit more me, but a me that I’m much happier with than when I was brunette before."

We’ll always have it on film, though.

And what is the biggest lesson Clarke has taken from her experience on Thrones? “You’re really good at remembering lines [laughs].” But also other stuff:

"Oh heavens, I’ve learned how lucky I am to have the show. I’ve definitely learned how the people you work with can become such a family and such a support system, and to lean on them when needed because it’s a singularly unique trait that our show has had because you don’t normally get that much time with people. But more than anything, trusting myself and taking props for when it goes well, which I’m not very good at. Just tune out “shit.fm,” which is what I like to call the nonsense that your brain sometimes likes to tell you, and just try and relax and have fun."

She also talked briefly about filming her last scene, and how her emotions got the best of her. “I started to do a little speech, not because I’m a pretentious actor, but because every time we said goodbye to a character, David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss], the showrunners would give us a gift and the crew would be around and everyone would stop and you’d sort of say a few words and it was really beautiful,” Clarke recalls. “I mean, I got three words in before I just completely broke down. You just hold it in and you’re holding it in and you’re holding it in, and then I just burst into tears like a complete idiot.”

Clarke does do stuff outside of Game of Thrones, although she admits that the show is “probably the hardest shooting I’ll do, because it is so physical and you’re in a corset!

"You’ve got the physical places of where you are, the weather is so extreme, and the hours are really long and there’s so much tension in each character towards the end. There’s so much tension in the room, and you’re concentrating so hard. It’s strenuous."

It’s probably easier being the face of Dolce & Gabbana’s The Only One fragrance:

Getting back to the business of finishing Game of Thrones, Clarke said she had a routine at the end of each day on set. It always ended with “[t]aking off your goddamn bra and getting into your pajamas.” Then she would go through the rigorous process of removing all the makeup she had to wear while filming. Completing the whole series felt like that, but bigger:

"I think ending it was just the mother of all releases. It was just the metaphorical undoing of the bra, except it’s like a 10-year experience."

Game of Thrones season 8 premieres on April 14. Not long now, y’all.

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