Emilia Clarke Is Done With the Fantasy Genre After ‘Game of Thrones’: ‘You’re Unlikely to See Me Get on a Dragon Ever Again’

Emilia Clarke told The New York Times as part of the press tour for her new Peacock espionage series “Ponies” that she is more or less done with the fantasy genre after spending eight years on HBO’s “Game of Thrones.” Clarke starred on the show as Daenerys Targaryen, also known as the Mother of Dragons.

“You’re highly unlikely to see me get on a dragon, or even in the same frame as a dragon, ever again,” Clarke told the publication.

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Clarke, who earned four Emmy nominations for her portrayal of Daenerys, was at the center of “Thrones'” tumultuous final season as her character went mad and turned into one of the primary villains of the last few episodes. Daenerys’ murder is the climax of the “Thrones” series finale. Clarke once told Entertainment Weekly that she had no idea Dany’s transformation into the Mad Queen was in store for her character, so she was speechless when she read the final scripts.

“What, what, what, WHAT!?” Clarke said about how she reacted to Dany’s death. “Because it comes out of fucking nowhere. I’m flabbergasted. Absolutely never saw that coming. I cried. And I went for a walk. I walked out of the house and took my keys and phone and walked back with blisters on my feet. I didn’t come back for five hours. I’m like, ‘How am I going to do this?’”

“I called my mom and [told her], ‘I read the scripts and I don’t want to tell you what happens but can you just talk me off this ledge? It really messed me up,’” she continued. “And then I asked my mom and brother really weird questions. They were like: ‘What are you asking us this for? What do you mean do I think Daenerys is a good person? Why are you asking us that question? Why do you care what people think of Daenerys? Are you okay?’”

“Thrones” viewers were largely outraged by how rushed Dany’s transformation into the Mad Queen felt during the final season. Clarke told The Sunday Times in 2020 that she was annoyed the series prioritized set pieces over dialogue scenes and character work. Asked by The Hollywood Reporter a year later if she had made peace with “Thrones” and how it ended, the actress answered, “I really have. I really, really, really have.”

“I think it’ll take me to my 90s to be able to objectively see what ‘Game of Thrones’ was, because there’s just too much me in it,” Clarke said at the time. “I have too many emotional reactions for what Emilia, herself, was experiencing at that moment in time when we were filming it. You know what I mean? I watch a scene and I go, ‘Oh, that was when [such and such] happened,’ which you didn’t see on screen. And I think there’s something timely about the prequels and the continuation of the ‘Game of Thrones’ story coming about now. I look at it and I’m like, ‘Wow, yeah.’ So I see it with only peace.”

Around the same time, Clarke told MTV that “I get why people are pissed” when it comes to Dany’s dark turn. She added: “I totally get it. But, me being the actor, you can’t do justice to the character that you poured your blood, sweat, and tears into for a decade without getting on the same page. So like, I’m not just going to be there being like, ‘Fine, I’ll do the scene, whatever. I’m so pissed.’ You have to turn up.”

Head over to The New York Times’ website to read Clarke’s latest profile in its entirety.