Emilia Clarke rose to fame at the very start of her career playing Daenerys Targaryen on Game of Thrones. But the final season of HBO’s blockbuster series was, shall we say, not very well received—in large part because of the way Dany’s hero-to-villain arc was handled. That wasn’t Clarke’s fault, of course, but it still meant fans didn’t have the best associations with her. And while her career has continued and she’s found success in dramas and rom-coms, her track record in big franchises hasn’t been the greatest, with roles in the likes of Solo: A Star Wars Story, Terminator Genisys, and Marvel series Secret Invasion.
However, in a new interview with Variety, Clarke sounds like she’s not letting the end of Thrones or any of her other high-profile misfires bother her too much. She’s even able to joke about the tepid reception to Secret Invasion, saying, “No one liked that show, guys,” as well as the others: “Star Wars? They didn’t like it. Terminator? That should never have happened. But these were jobs I said yes to, you know what I mean?”
And she doesn’t take the failures too much to heart. “I entered into already existing franchises, so when they don’t work out, it’s not personal,” she told Variety.
However, these experiences did teach her to be more selective: “I said no to a lot […] I need to wait for the right thing.” She still has fond memories of her time on Game of Thrones, calling creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss “geniuses.” But she also underlines that she didn’t really have any creative input into shaping Daenerys beyond the performance itself.
“I was given the seasons, and I, to the best of my ability, empathized and understood and tracked every choice she made so it felt like mine. I felt like that was what my job was,” she said.
Looking back, she added, “I have gone through every circuitous route to get to the place that I am now, which is finally being able to be very grateful for everything that Game of Thrones did and has given me. I no longer feel trapped in it, or trapped in the result of being in it. I feel just really lucky that it happened to me—even luckier that I’ve had time to understand what that was, and now I feel firmly on the other side.”
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