Emilia Clarke remembers her first TV job, starts challenge for charity

When Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke isn’t running over 25 miles for charity, she’s recalling her early soap opera days and throwing back “Emilia-Tinis.”

Even during a pandemic, Game of Thrones veteran Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen) is out there doing good.

If you weren’t aware, a while back Clarke started a charity called SameYou, dedicated to raising money to help people suffering with stroke and brain injury. Clarke was inspired to do this after having multiple brain surgeries while working on Game of Thrones.

With the coronavirus pandemic on, in-person fundraising events are pretty much out. But Clarke and her team have gotten creative with the SameYou Inca Challenge, which challenges people to run the length, bike, swim or walk the length of the Inca trail in Peru: 26 miles. Clarke, with the help of her dog Ted, led by example on Instagram:

The goal is to make the 26 miles by the end of September. To find out more about the SameYou Inca Challenge, including how to donate, head here.

In other Emilia Clarke news, she recently chatted with her Last Christmas director Paul Feig during the Edinburgh TV Festival, and reminisced about her very first TV acting job: a minor role on the long-running (since 2000) British soap opera Doctors.

“There was a really small space and they were like, ‘OK, we have literally got time for one take, I’m really sorry Emilia, I know this is your debut on TV but we’ve got one take so don’t mess it up,’” Clarke remembered. “And I walk into this really small office and I’m meant to look shocked and alarmed and really upset about what I’m looking at. Just horrified.”

And then, if her task wasn’t already difficult enough, someone in the camera crew “let one rip.” Try doing this in one take now. “I was like, ‘We have got one take, just smell the smell’.”

That’s a professional, right there.

Discussing what advice she would give to other aspiring actors, Clarke encouraged them to ask, “is there anything else, anything at all, that you could really see yourself doing instead.”

"If there is, then do that because if you are acting, it is a rocky road and also you have to love it with every fibre of your being. You have got to do it like you’ve got to breathe, because if you don’t, it just isn’t worth the pain and the heartache that comes along with being self-employed."

Still, if it works out, it’s a pretty good gig.

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h/t The Irish News