Emilia Clarke is truly a Targaryen! The Game of Thrones star opened up about surviving two brain aneurysms while filming the iconic series and powering through it. She suffered her first brain haemorrhage shortly after wrapping up the show’s first season. A short while later, while working on a Broadway project in New York, a routine brain scan revealed another dangerous aneurysm, leading to her second life-threatening health scare.
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During the May 13 episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the actor candidly reflected on one of the most difficult periods of her life. She detailed the terrifying reality of her medical emergencies, recalled how hospitals responded to her condition, and spoke about a brain surgery that went wrong. Emilia Clarke also opened up about the overwhelming emotional and psychological toll the repeated health crises and recovery process had on her mental wellbeing.
Emilia Clarke’s major health scare
In the interview, Emilia Clarke, who famously portrayed Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones from 2011 to 2019, recalled suffering her first brain haemorrhage while doing a plank exercise at the gym shortly after wrapping the show’s debut season. After being rushed to the hospital for treatment, she remembered being consumed by anxiety over returning to work.
Speaking of experiencing her first brain aneurysm, the 39-year-old actor recalled, “The night before, I had a horrible headache and felt restless and anxious. At the gym, the closest thing to describe the feeling is imagining an elastic band snapping around your brain with insane pressure. I crawled to the bathroom and was vomiting profusely with an unbearable headache. In that moment, I knew I was being brain damaged…No one knew what was wrong; they initially assumed I was on drugs, which often happens to young people having a stroke or brain bleed. Eventually, a nurse whose husband was a brain surgeon asked if I had received a brain scan, and I was rushed to a specialist hospital.”
In the weeks following the haemorrhage, the actor found herself desperately trying to reassure HBO executives and the creators of Game of Thrones that she would recover in time to continue filming. Emilia admitted that she felt “ashamed” after the incident, fearing that her employers would view her as “weak” or “something that could be broken.” Apart from informing showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss out of professional obligation, she largely kept the health crisis private. Clarke also revealed that she had barely a month before embarking on the show’s season one press tour, and was still recovering while under the effects of morphine during that time.
A surgery gone wrong and the emotional repercussions
Towards the later years of the show, a routine brain scan revealed that an existing aneurysm — first detected during her initial treatment – had grown to nearly three times its original size. Emilia was told the operation would be relatively straightforward and require only an overnight stay. However, the procedure took a terrifying turn when she was woken up midway through surgery after a complication caused a tear that led to severe bleeding. Doctors then had to urgently seek consent to perform an emergency operation to save her life.
The hardest part, Emilia admitted, was everything that followed. The Me Before You actor recalled emotionally shutting down in the aftermath of the ordeal, haunted by the belief that she had somehow cheated death and could die at any moment. She said, “I was just convinced that I had cheated death and I was meant to die. That’s all I could think about. It was the opposite of ‘I survived. I feel great’. It was like I’m not meant to be here, this is going to come and get me. It just cuts you off from being able to engage with the outside world, because you’re walking around knowing that your body has failed you, your brain has failed you. Your perception of yourself has failed you and no one else can see it.”
She recalled being consumed by fear every time she experienced even the slightest headache. Just six weeks after the operation, Emilia was at San Diego Comic-Con promoting Game of Thrones when she suddenly developed another headache. As her publicist arrived to escort her for a live interview with MTV, the actor remembered being gripped by panic, convinced she was “going to die.” In that moment, she feared that if death came for her, it would happen live on television.