Emilia Clarke

In 2011, Clarke suffered a subarachnoid haemorrhage caused by a ruptured brain aneurysm and underwent emergency endovascular coiling surgery. She experienced aphasia during her recovery and was temporarily unable to say her own name. A second aneurysm was surgically treated in 2013.

In 2019, Clarke founded SameYou, a charity focused on improving access to neurorehabilitation for young people recovering from brain injuries and strokes. She received the American Brain Foundation's Public Leadership in Neurology award in 2020, and she and her mother, Jennifer Susan Dodd Clarke, were appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire in 2024 for creating the charity.

Clarke was in a relationship with Seth MacFarlane from 2012 to 2013. She dated Charlie McDowell from 2018 to 2019.

Clarke became interested in acting at the age of three after attending a production of Show Boat, on which her father was working as a theatre sound engineer. She later appeared in school productions of West Side Story and Twelfth Night while attending Rye St Antony and St Edward's School in Oxford.

After leaving school, Clarke studied at Drama Centre London and graduated in 2009. She made her first credited television appearance as Saskia Mayer in a 2009 episode of the BBC soap opera Doctors. Her early screen work also included the television film Triassic Attack and commercials for the charity Samaritans.

Clarke's breakthrough came when she was cast as Daenerys Targaryen in HBO's Game of Thrones. She replaced Tamzin Merchant after the original pilot episode was filmed and portrayed Daenerys throughout all eight seasons, appearing in 62 episodes from 2011 to 2019.

Her performance charted Daenerys's transformation from an exiled and frightened girl into a powerful claimant to the Iron Throne. Clarke received four Primetime Emmy Award nominations for the role, including an Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series nomination in 2019. She also lent her voice and likeness to the 2014 Game of Thrones video game and appeared in a 2019 episode of Saturday Night Live during Kit Harington's hosting appearance.

Clarke expanded into film with roles in Spike Island and Dom Hemingway. She played Sarah Connor opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator Genisys (2015), Louisa Clark in Me Before You (2016), and Qi'ra in Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018). She later starred as Susan Smith in Above Suspicion and Kate in the romantic comedy Last Christmas (2019).

Her stage work includes playing Holly Golightly in the 2013 Broadway production of Breakfast at Tiffany's. She made her West End debut as Nina in Anton Chekhov's The Seagull. The production was suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic, resumed in 2022, and was broadcast internationally through National Theatre Live.

Clarke played G'iah in the Marvel Cinematic Universe miniseries Secret Invasion (2023), voiced Malicia in The Amazing Maurice, and starred in The Pod Generation. She also served as an executive producer on The Pod Generation and the television series Ponies.

In 2021, Clarke co-wrote the comic book series M.O.M.: Mother of Madness with Marguerite Bennett. The story follows a single mother whose unusual powers are connected to menstruation.

Clarke was appointed an ambassador for the Royal College of Nursing in 2018 and became the first ambassador for the global Nursing Now campaign in 2019. She received the BAFTA Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year in 2018, was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in 2019, and was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2018.