Emilia Clarke is “missing” part of her brain after aneurysms

Emilia Clarke suffered multiple brain aneurysms early in her run on Game of Thrones, and feels very fortunate to be living now with “no repercussions.”

Towards the end of her time as Daenerys Targaryen on Game of Thrones, actor Emilia Clarke opened up about having had two brain aneurysms early on in the show’s run. It got to a point where she wasn’t sure if she was going to be able to continue acting — at one point she was suffering from aphasia and couldn’t remember her own name — but she pulled through and finished the series in flying colors, and has a vibrant career onscreen on stage today.

The experience inspired Clarke to create the SameYou charity, which helps people suffering with stroke and brain injury. She talked more about her journey the other day on BBC One’s Sunday Morning. “The amount of my brain that is no longer usable – it’s remarkable that I am able to speak, sometimes articulately, and live my life completely normally with absolutely no repercussions,” she said. “I am in the really, really, really small minority of people that can survive that.”

Clarke, who always seems like she’s in good spirits during interviews like this, is now able to find humor in her ordeal. For instance, she notes that when she has brain scans, quite a bit of her brain is “missing.” That “always makes me laugh.”

"Because strokes, basically, as soon as any part of your brain doesn’t get blood for a second, it’s gone. And so the blood finds a different route to get around but then whatever bit it’s missing is therefore gone."

You can learn more about the SameYou charity here. As for Clarke, she’s currently starring in a production of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London. She’ll also appear in the upcoming Marvel series Secret Invasion on Disney+.

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h/t Independent