Emilia Clarke Was ‘Hurt’ and ‘Really Pissed’ by ‘Game of Thrones’ Language Expert Criticizing Her Dothraki Accent; But He Now Clarifies That Was Never True

Emilia Clarke called out “Game of Thrones” linguist David J. Peterson during a recent stop at “Late Night With Seth Meyers” while promoting her new Peacock espionage series “Ponies.” The Emmy nominee recalled feeling “hurt” and “really pissed” when she read an article in which Peterson was critical of the way she spoke Dothraki, one of the fictional languages on “Game of Thrones.”

“I put so much energy into learning Dothraki,” Clarke said. “But the creator of the language, I read in an article, said I sucked at Dothraki. I was like, ‘What, bro?’ It’s not real! It’s not a real language! I can’t suck at it because me saying it on the TV, that’s how it goes… Honestly, I was so hurt. And then really pissed.”

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Not so fast, though. Peterson spoke to Entertainment Weekly after Clarke’s “Late Night” interview and said the actor was mistaken if she ever read criticism about her Dothraki accent. He clarified that yes, he believed Clarke’s Dothraki was somewhat wobbly on the show, but that’s exactly what was needed for her character, Daenerys Targaryen, since she was not a Dothraki native.

“I think Emilia may have misunderstood what I said, because I’ve never criticized her Dothraki,” Peterson said in a statement to Entertainment Weekly. “Why would I? Her character was never supposed to speak it like a first language, so she never had to be good at it.”

“Criticizing any imperfections in her Dothraki performance would be like criticizing Colin Firth for stuttering in ‘The King’s Speech.’ It would be entirely missing the point,” he continued. “In fact, grammatical and punctuation errors were built into many of her Dothraki lines — and these were included in the MP3s I recorded for her — for this very purpose… Emilia Clarke did a fine job with Dothraki, in that she was portraying a character who, through incredible hardship, is forced to learn a language she’s never heard before and eventually becomes functionally fluent in the manner of a non-native speaker — and in a relatively short amount of time.” 

It’s unclear what interview Clarke read in which Peterson allegedly criticized her Dothraki accent. He spoke to Rolling Stone in 2017 and said the following: “It’s always funny to me to hear Emilia Clarke speak Dothraki. Of course, her character is not supposed to be fluent, and it really sounds… not fluent. It’s great for her character, she understands and she can speak. She just doesn’t sound quite right.”

Peterson also commended Clarke’s work in a 2019 Vanity Fair interview, saying, “Emilia, thank you for everything you did. Your non-native, yet fluent Dothraki always sounded very nice, so well done.” 

Clarke starred on all eight seasons of “Game of Thrones” and earned four Emmy nominations for her portrayal of Daenerys. She recently told The New York Times that she is not interested in returning to the fantasy genre, explaining: “You’re highly unlikely to see me get on a dragon, or even in the same frame as a dragon, ever again.”