Emilia Clarke explains what Daenerys is thinking during her big turn

CANNES, FRANCE – MAY 15: Emilia Clarke attends Kering Talks Women In Motion At The Cannes Film Festival at Majestic Barriere on May 15, 2018 in Cannes, France (Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images)

The interview, as mentioned, is huge. Feel free to listen to it yourself; it’s excellent. If not, here are a few more noteworthy bits:

• The crew spend a chunk of time talking the surrealness of fame. When asked if Clarke had ever been bowled over by a celebrity knowing who she is, she mentioned getting a compliment from Marion Cotillard as particularly memorable and wonderful.
• Clarke thinks there’s something “super hot” about a Boston accent. She’s a big Good Will Hunting fan.
• Clarke talks a lot about her life, including her time at an English boarding school. “Was it like Hogwarts?” she’s asked. “Slightly…no floating candles, unfortunately.”
• She recalls her famous Game of Thrones audition, remembering that Daenerys was supposed to be “willowy and tall and ethereal and all of those things.” Clarke doesn’t think she was any of those things, but she did do the funky chicken and the robot at her audition, and it worked.
• Apparently, the fact that Game of Thrones is truly over is finally hitting the cast and crew. “It was two weeks ago, when I was sitting in my room, thinking about stuff, and went, ‘Huh, that was like a very big thing,'” Clarke said. She equates it with emerging from a bunker where she’s been for 10 years.
• When they met, Jason Momoa literally wrestled Clarke to the ground. “I was so English before then!” she said. “Whatever room he’s in, he takes up the whole room.”
• She also recalls sharing a scene with Kit Harington after knowing him offscreen for years, remembering that it was “embarrassment” because both of them had trouble taking it seriously. They would make gagging noises around each other during their kissing/sex scenes.
• On acting opposite a floating green ball that’s supposed to be a dragon: “When you’ve got an imaginary thing you’re working with, you’re like, ‘You know what? I’m acting opposite Brando right now.’ I’ve decided. And this dragon is giving me gold!”
• On the famously taciturn Rory McCann (the Hound), who lives on a boat: “He literally is a Hemingway novel.”
• Clarke would take care of Peter Dinklage’s kids sometimes when they were in Belfast. Aw.

And there’s a lot more. Clarke speaks eloquently about the strange experience of negotiating who she is with how people see her because of the show, something she can’t control and will never fully be able to understand. She talks about the British class system, and how dating is different there vs in America, and job anxiety and her health struggles and a lot of other stuff we don’t have time to write down because we would be here all day. It’s a terrific discussion!

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