Emilia Clarke has revealed that she survived two brain haemorrhages during the years she was filming Game of Thrones, including one that hit after the show's first season and another that was discovered during a routine brain scan while she was working on a Broadway project in New York.
The actor, known worldwide for playing Daenerys Targaryen, described the first episode as happening after a gym workout, when she was doing a plank exercise and suddenly felt severe pressure and pain. She said she was rushed to hospital, but the ordeal did not end there.
Clarke discussed the medical emergencies on How to Fail with Elizabeth Day and said she felt ashamed afterward, worrying that employers would see her as weak or broken. She told only the showrunners, David Benioff and DB Weiss, about the crisis while keeping the rest of the production in the dark. In her telling, she also recalled how the night before the first haemorrhage she had a headache, felt restless and anxious, then crawled to a bathroom and began vomiting as the pain worsened. She said no one knew what was wrong at first and that some people assumed she was on drugs, until a nurse connected her symptoms to a possible brain bleed and she was taken to a specialist hospital.
The second haemorrhage came after a scan showed that an existing aneurysm had grown to nearly three times its original size, prompting doctors to advise surgery. That operation went wrong, she said, causing a tear and severe bleeding that forced doctors to carry out an emergency operation to save her life. A separate account of Clarke's recollection of the surgeries during her Game of Thrones years is available in this related report: Emilia Clarke recalls two brain surgeries during Game of Thrones years.
Clarke said the experience changed how she moved through the world. She said she became convinced she had cheated death and was meant to die, and that she lived in constant fear, even when she had a headache. The disclosure adds a harsher edge to the story of one of Game of Thrones' best-known stars: while the series was becoming a global phenomenon, Clarke was privately recovering from two life-threatening brain haemorrhages and trying to keep working through a crisis that left her shaken long after the medical emergency had passed.
