Emilia Clarke's reaction to her Game of Thrones fate: “What, what, what, WHAT!?”

Entertainment Weekly

Clarke first learned about Daenerys Targaryen's final season fate in October 2017, when her scripts were sent to her electronically. “What, what, what, WHAT!?” Clarke tells EW of her initial reaction. “Because it comes out of f*cking nowhere. I’m flabbergasted. Absolutely never saw that coming.” Clarke says she "completely flipped out" after reading Daenerys' final arc, including the series finale. “I cried,” says Clarke. “And I went for a walk. I walked out of the house and took my keys and phone and walked back with blisters on my feet. I didn’t come back for five hours. I’m like, ‘How am I going to do this?’” Two days later, Clarke found herself sitting next to Kit Harington on a flight to Belfast. But Harington opted not to read the scripts until the first table read. When he did finally read it, "he was crying,” says Clarke. “And then it was kind of great him not having read it.”

ALSO:

• Emilia Clarke was told her arc was like Lawrence of Arabia: "I watched Lawrence of Arabia, and I was, like, 'Great, cool. He’s brilliant. He survived, and it’s wonderful,'" she tells The New Yorker. "But then you remember how that movie ended, with Lawrence’s disintegration. I didn’t quite put those two things together. Or maybe I didn’t want to see it coming because I care about Daenerys too much." Clarke also suggested that creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss serving as extras in the infamous coffee cup scene may have contributed to the error.
• What Clarke would say to girls named Daenerys or Khaleesi: "I would say, 'Work it, girls!' I’ve enjoyed being called that, and I think they will, too"
• Clarke worried Beyoncé would hate Daenerys after the final season
• Clarke wasn't allowed to keep Daenerys' dragon eggs as a souvenir
• Clarke bids an emotional goodbye to the Game of Thrones cast on Instagram