Emilia Clarke reflects on life-threatening brain injuries during 'Game of Thrones' filming

Emilia Clarke has spoken about the lasting emotional impact of suffering two brain haemorrhages during the early years of her career, saying she once believed she had “cheated death” and was “meant to die.”

The 39-year-old Game of Thrones star opened up about her health scares on the podcast How To Fail with Elizabeth Day, reflecting on the life-threatening medical emergencies she experienced while filming the hit HBO series.

Clarke revealed that her first brain haemorrhage occurred shortly after completing filming for the show’s first season, describing the onset as a sudden and overwhelming pressure in her head while she was working out at a gym.

“The closest thing to describe it is imagine an elastic band just snapping around your brain,” she said, adding that she collapsed, crawled to a bathroom and began vomiting as the pain intensified.

At the time, she said she immediately feared serious brain damage and was also worried about how her health would affect her role as Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones, which ran from 2011 to 2019.

Clarke admitted she felt deep shame and fear of appearing “weak” to colleagues, and initially only informed showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, keeping the rest of the production unaware.

She later underwent scans that revealed a second brain aneurysm while she was living in New York and performing in a Broadway production.

Although she underwent surgery, Clarke said doctors were forced into emergency procedures after complications arose during the operation.

She recalled a harrowing period in which her parents waited at the hospital while medical staff repeatedly warned that she might not survive.

“It was after the second haemorrhage that I shut down emotionally,” she said, explaining that brain injuries left her more sensitive and changed the way she experienced the world.

Clarke added that she now undergoes regular brain scans and considers herself fortunate to be among a very small percentage of people who survive such conditions without lasting major complications.

“I’m in like 0.001 per cent of people who survive what I’ve had without any real repercussions,” she said, describing her current health as stable and closely monitored.