Emilia Clarke has said she’s likely finished working on fantasy projects after spending nine years as Daenerys Targaryen, the central character in Game of Thrones who received a highly controversial ending.
Speaking to the New York Times, Clarke said that it was “highly unlikely” viewers would see her “get on a dragon, or even in the same frame as a dragon, ever again.”
Clarke has previously discussed her difficulty processing how her character ended up in Game of Thrones, and her shock at reading the finale’s script for the first time. And in a 2021 interview, Clarke said she could “get why people were pissed” with how her fan-favorite character Daenerys was handled in the series’ final episodes.
Now, Clarke has said she struggled following the show’s finale, especially after she finally wrapped up her last duties promoting the show at the Emmys in late 2019, shortly before the Covid pandemic hit. “It was the first time in my professional life that I stopped,” she said. “I had a full mental breakdown. It was almost as if the timing of the pandemic was bang on.”
Seven years later, Clarke is now taking on a lead role in a new TV show, cold war spy drama Ponies, which begins streaming via Peacock this week. “I was definitely, like — a lead in a TV show? I know what that commitment feels like.”
But Clarke said this lengthy time since Thrones has now allowed her “to realize that I could try and get some autonomy over my choices, my work. So much of my career didn’t reflect my taste, I just sort of shot out of a cannon.”
Don’t expect Daenerys back in any future Game of Thrones project, then, as work bubbles away within HBO on further spin-offs beyond House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms — including several ideas for potential sequels, according to franchise creator George R.R. Martin. (Where did that dragon carry her off? We may never know.)
Years on from Game of Thrones’ final episode airing, the show’s legacy still looms large. Earlier this month, Sansa Stark actress Sophie Turner suggested she was one of the few cast members happy with the fate of their character following the series’ divisive final season. At the same time, however, Jon Snow actor Kit Harington has said he was “genuinely angered” by a fan-made petition that called for the final season to be remade with “competent writers.”
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
