Emilia Isobel Euphemia Rose Clarke (born 23 October 1986) is an English actress. She achieved international recognition for her role as Daenerys Targaryen in the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones (2011–2019), for which she received nominations for four Primetime Emmy Awards. She is also widely known for playing Sarah Connor in the science-fiction film Terminator: Genisys (2015) and Qi'ra in the film Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), and for starring in the romantic dramas Me Before You (2016) and Last Christmas (2019).
Clarke's television debut was a guest appearance in the BBC One medical soap opera Doctors in 2009, at age 22. Clarke made her Broadway debut as Holly Golightly in the play Breakfast at Tiffany's (2013), and played Nina in a West End production of The Seagull. She also played G'iah in the Marvel Cinematic Universe miniseries Secret Invasion (2023).
Early life and education Clarke was born on 23 October 1986 in London. She grew up in Oxfordshire. Her father, Peter Roderick "Rick" Clarke, was a theatre sound engineer from Wolverhampton who died in 2016 from cancer.
Her mother, Jennifer Susan Dodd Clarke, is a businesswoman who is the vice-president for marketing at a management-consultancy firm and the director of The Anima Foundation, which is a charity to help young people in Ghana. She has a younger brother, Bennett, who works in the entertainment industry and was part of the camera department for Game of Thrones.
Clarke's maternal grandmother was from India. She ascribes her family's "history of fighters" to their Indian ancestry, which she stated to be a source of pride and integral to her identity: "The fact that [my grandmother] had to hide her skin colour, essentially, and try desperately to fit in with everyone else must've been incredibly difficult". Clarke stated that her mother had rules when she was growing up: "Don't do drugs, don't have sex, and don't touch your eyebrows", and that she was bullied as a child for "having ridiculous eyebrows". Clarke stated that "My father always told me—Never trust anyone whose TV is bigger than their bookshelf".
Education Clarke became interested in acting at the age of three years after seeing a production of the musical Show Boat. When she was ten, her father took her to a West End audition for The Goodbye Girl, a musical by Neil Simon.
Clarke was educated at Rye St Antony School, Headington, and at St Edward's School, Oxford, which she left in 2005. In a 2016 interview with Time Out, she stated "I went to posh boarding schools, but I wasn't the posh girl at the posh boarding schools". She also stated that most of the people at St. Edward's School were Conservative, as a consequence of which she and some of her friends often felt like outsiders.
After she had finished school, Clarke unsuccessfully applied to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She worked and travelled before enrolling at Drama Centre London, where she graduated in 2009.
Career
2000–2010: Beginnings Clarke started to act in stage productions while attending school. She appeared in student productions of Twelfth Night and West Side Story while attending St Edward's School. After taking a sabbatical year, she was accepted into Drama Centre London. Clarke also appeared in the 2009 production of Sense, co-produced by theatre company Company of Angels and Drama Centre London.
One of her first film roles was in Drop the Dog, a University of London student short film. She graduated from drama school in 2009. She worked at various non-acting jobs after graduating while auditioning for roles. She starred in two commercials for the charity Samaritans, portraying a domestic abuse victim. Her first credited television role was a bit part in a 2009 episode of the British soap opera Doctors. Clarke was cast in her first professional film role, playing Savannah in the 2010 television film Triassic Attack. The film was released in November 2010 on the Syfy channel in the United States where it received negative reviews. Despite the film's reviews, she was named a "UK Star of Tomorrow" by the film magazine Screen International.
2011–2019: Game of Thrones and worldwide recognition
Clarke was cast in her third professional role in 2010, as Daenerys Targaryen in the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones. It is based on the fantasy book series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin. Daenerys is one of the last surviving members of House Targaryen, which had ruled Westeros from the Iron Throne for nearly three hundred years prior to being ousted. Actress Tamzin Merchant was originally cast for the part of Daenerys. When the pilot episode was re-shot in early 2010, Merchant was replaced by Clarke. The show ran from April 2011 until May 2019, with Clarke portraying Daenerys throughout all eight seasons.
Clarke received critical acclaim for her portrayal of Daenerys, which traces an arc from frightened girl to powerful woman. Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe called her scenes "mesmerising", adding that "Clarke doesn't have a lot of emotional variety to work with as Daenerys, aside from fierce determination, and yet she is riveting." Emily St. James for The A.V. Club commented on the difficulty of adapting such an evolution from page to screen, but concluded that Clarke was able to "more than seal the deal here."
Clarke said by being cast as Daenerys, she had avoided the "typical bonnet duty that you have to go through as a young British actress". In 2017, she reportedly became one of the highest-paid actors on television, earning between £1.2 and £2 million per episode of Game of Thrones. In 2019, she said she had been uncomfortable acting nude in her first experience at age 23 of a large film set, but had since become "a lot more savvy" about what level of nudity is needed for a scene. Clarke received multiple award nominations and wins for her role of Daenerys. She was nominated three times for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2013, 2015, and 2016. At the 2019 Emmys, she was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, her first nomination in the category.
In addition to the television show, she lent her voice and likeness to the 2014 video game of the same name. She also made a cameo appearance during Kit Harington monologue on Saturday Night Live in April 2019. She said in a November 2019 NPR interview that if she "were to get stereotyped as the mother of dragons, I could ask for worse. It's really quite wonderful." In a 2021 interview with theSkimm, Clarke stated that she would change the way her character died.
2012–2021: Varied roles, franchise films, and publishing Clarke's first film role was in the short film Shackled (2012). The film was featured in the 2020 Amazon Prime Video horror anthology series Murder Manual. The same year, she starred alongside Elliott Tittensor in the comedy film Spike Island. It details a group of friends who try to get to the namesake island of The Stone Roses 1990 concert. The movie was originally distributed only in the United Kingdom but was subsequently picked up by Level 33 Entertainment for North American distribution in March 2015. From March to April 2013, she played Holly Golightly in a Broadway production of Breakfast at Tiffany's, a role requiring her to perform a nude scene. The production, along with her performance, received mixed reviews from critics. Later that year, she also starred in the black comedy-crime drama film Dom Hemingway alongside Jude Law.
In May 2013 Clarke was cast in a film adaptation of the novel The Garden of Last Days. James Franco was set to direct and star in the film; however, he left the project two weeks before filming after creative differences with the film distributor Millennium Entertainment. In a 2019 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Clarke said she was offered the role of Anastasia Steele in Fifty Shades of Grey. She said she turned down the part because of the nudity required.
In 2013, she was cast as Sarah Connor in the science fiction action film Terminator Genisys (2015). The film, which also stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jai Courtney, and Jason Clarke, received unfavourable reviews from critics but was a box office success, grossing over $440 million worldwide. Clarke was nominated for Teen Choice Award for Choice Summer Movie Star – Female and Best International Actress at the 2016 Jupiter Awards for her performance.
She starred as the female lead, opposite Sam Claflin, in the film adaptation of the best-selling novel of the same name, Me Before You. The film which was released on 3 June 2016 and directed by Thea Sharrock, received mixed critical reviews. The film was a box office success with worldwide revenues of $200 million. For her role as Louisa "Lou" Clark, she shared nominations with Sam Claflin for the Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Liplock and the MTV Television Tearjerker Award. In 2017, she played the lead as Nurse Verena in the supernatural psychological thriller film Voice from the Stone. The film was released in April 2017 for a limited theatre run, followed by video on demand and digital HD.
She was cast as the female lead in Solo: A Star Wars Story in November 2016. The movie, which was directed by Ron Howard and premiered in May 2018, details the origins of Star Wars characters Han Solo and Chewbacca. Clarke played Qi'ra, Han's childhood friend and love interest. The film received favourable critical reviews despite being the second-lowest grossing Star Wars film. The film was released worldwide on 25 May 2018. Her performance received positive critical reviews with many calling her one of the standouts of the film. Clarke, along with Jack Huston, was cast in 2016 as leads in the film Above Suspicion (2019). The film is based on a thriller novel by Joe Sharkey and directed by Phillip Noyce, and was announced at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. The film received generally favourable reviews with Clarke's performance being highly praised by critics. It also had a turbulent release which left it vulnerable to piracy. In late 2019, Clarke starred opposite Henry Golding in the romantic comedy Last Christmas. The film was written by Emma Thompson and directed by Paul Feig. In a January 2020 interview with Bustle magazine, Clarke stated she was inspired by Will Ferrell character in the 2003 comedy film Elf. Despite its unfavourable reviews, critics praised Clarke's performance, and the film went on to become a box office success grossing over $121 million worldwide.
Clarke starred as Nina in the West End production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, directed by Jamie Lloyd, which began previews on 11 March 2020 at the Playhouse Theatre. The production was suspended on 16 March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The play was Clarke's first West End production. It resumed two years later in July 2022 and was broadcast internationally via National Theatre Live. The play, along with her portrayal of Nina won acclaim, with critics calling Clarke's performance, "magnetic" and "undeniably charismatic." In 2021, Clarke published the first in a series of comic books titled M.O.M.: Mother of Madness that she co-wrote with Marguerite Bennett.
2022–present: Expansion into other franchises and independent cinema In 2022, Clarke was cast in the animated film The Amazing Maurice. The film, which is an adaptation of The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett, was released in the United Kingdom on 16 December 2022 and in the United States on 3 February 2023. In January 2023, Clarke starred in and executive produced The Pod Generation. The film had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and was directed by Sophie Barthes.