Visiting Emilia Clarke on the set of The Seagull

Now that Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen) is no longer riding dragons and burning to ash entire populations on Game of Thrones, she’s going to focus on her stage career. Appearing for the first time on London’s West End, Clarke will be playing Nina in Anton Chekhov’s classic play The Seagull.

Recently, TimeOut interviewed Clarke and her co-star Daniel Monks (Konstantin) and found out that — horror of horrors — Clarke was the only person in the room who had seen Game of Thrones. “But, I have seen every episode of Jonathan Van Ness’s Gay of Thrones [a video series in which the Queer Eye star recaps each episode of the fantasy show],” Monks clarified. “I know everything!”

I’m more on Clarke’s side: “I’m SURROUNDED! You’ve not even seen my FUCKING SHOW!”

But obviously not really: “It’s fine. None of my friends have seen all of it either.”

Clarke and Monks play a “damaged couple,” at least at the beginning of the play. She plays Nina, a young woman desperate to become an actress so she can escape an isolated life in the Russian countryside. Konstantin is a new playwright and the son of a famous actor, played by fellow Game of Thrones veteran Indira Varma. Hopefully she and Clarke can commiserate over how out of touch their castmates are.

Kidding. Mostly.

During and after Thrones, Clarke did a fair amount of big screen work, making appearances in major movies like Terminator Genisys and Solo: A Star Wars Story, and then in the romantic comedy Last Christmas. But right now, she’s focusing on developing her own production company and realizing her dream of conquering the theater. “It’s something I care really deeply about, because it’s fucking acting, it’s proper!”

Clarke first noticed Monks when she saw his British stage debut in Teenage Dick, a play about a high school version of King Richard III. But they didn’t actually meet until he was cast in The Seagull. “It was surreal for me,” Monks recalled. “Because on press night everyone was saying Emilia Clarke was in the audience. Then straightaway I got this audition.”

The play is directed by Jake Lloyd, and Clarke seems very impressed. “No samovars, no white linen, no crickets in the background. And when you strip it back to its bare essentials, all you’re hearing is a truth so profound it’s frightening. This shit will fuck you up.”

The Seagull opens today at the Playhouse Theater, and will run through May 20. Get your tickets here.

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