Emilia Clarke looks back on Game of Thrones season 1, forward to spin-offs

Emilia Clarke wishes the Game of Thrones spin-offs well, and remembers her start. “That first season was nonstop joy…I look back at it with complete love.”

Game of Thrones premiered 10 years ago today. The show would go on to change the face of TV, not to mention the lives of many of it’s young cast members, including Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen). “I honestly still look back at it and go, ‘I’m so not at a point where I can retrospectively see this for what it is,'” she told Entertainment Weekly. “I think I’ll be 90 when I can actually do that. The experience was so enormous, and so all-consuming, and defines me at that young moment in my life. You kind of look back at it like you would high school or college. When you’re young like that, you’re so in the moment.”

"I look back at the person who was there and go, “You really have no idea what’s coming. You have no idea what’s about to hit.” And it was beautiful for that. We were all very much in the moment that we were in, and very unaware as to how it was going to be received, what people were going to think, who we were going to be at the end of it. I’m going to call us kids, because we were — we were just having fun, experiencing this crazy thing. And it was joyous for that. That first season was nonstop joy, and so much fun. I look back at it with complete love."

Clarke was fresh out of drama school when she booked the role of Daenerys Targaryen, and helped turn the character into an icon. Game of Thrones is over, but HBO is mounting a lot of prequel series in its wake, including House of the Dragon, which is all about the history of House Targaryen. “Godspeed, everyone!” Clarke said of the coming spin-offs. “You do you, you go, Glenn Coco!”

“It’s just inevitable,” Clarke continued. “I wish you all the best, it’s gonna be whatever it will be, but of course they’re doing more. You can’t create something that big and not have people go, ‘And? What else? This is really good! Let’s do loads more!'”

She reserved special praise for House of the Dragon co-showrunner Miguel Sapochnik, who directed her in Game of Thrones episodes like “Hardhome,” “The Winds of Winter” and “The Bells” (he’ll manage the spin-off alongside Ryan Condal). “I love him completely, so I have no doubt that’s gonna be an enormous success, because he’s just a genius,” Clarke said.

Will the Game of Thrones spin-offs create a new legacy we’ll be talking about 10 years later? Time will tell.

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