Emilia Clarke, who is best known for her role as Daenerys Targaryen in HBO’s Game of Thrones, recently spoke about surviving two brain aneurysms (swelling of the wall of an artery), which she suffered while filming the hit HBO series.
The actor said that she finds it remarkable that she is still able to speak and lead a normal life.
Emilia Clarke has “quite a bit missing” from her brain after she suffered two brain aneurysms.
The ‘Game of Thrones’ star underwent life-saving surgery after she had two instances of ballooning in a blood vessel in the brain in 2011 and 2013.
And the 35-year-old actress has recalled how she used lines from the hit fantasy series – in which she played Daenerys Targaryen – to try and help her “regain consciousness” during her aneurysm and admitted she’s lucky she’s still verbal.
Speaking on the BBC’s ‘Sunday Morning’ with Sophie Raworth, she recalled: “It was just the most excruciating pain, huge vomiting, trying to regain consciousness; I kept asking myself all these questions.
“I hilariously kept saying lines from the show in my head. If you are throwing up and you have a headache, that is not good for your brain.
“I was 22 [when she had the first aneurysm] but it was helpful having ‘Game of Thrones’ to sweep me up and give me that purpose.
“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.
“I am in the really, really, really small minority of people that can survive that.”
“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. It kind of shows how little of our brains we actually use.”
Emilia Clarke went straight back to working on the HBO show after having emergency surgery, and previously said she developed anxiety whilst on set because she was constantly worried she would have another aneurysm.
She said in 2020: “I had the consistent fear that I was going to have another brain aneurysm. I spent a lot time just being like: ‘Am I gonna die? Is that gonna happen on set? Because that would be really inconvenient. And with any kind of brain injury it leaves you with a fatigue that’s indescribable. I was trying so hard to keep it under wraps.”
