— Actress Emilia Clarke, who is known for playing Daenerys Targaryen in the Game of Thrones, has talked about surviving two brain hemorrhages during her time on the fantasy drama show, which left her feeling that she had “cheated death.”
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LOS ANGELES — Actress Emilia Clarke, who is known for playing Daenerys Targaryen in the Game of Thrones, has talked about surviving two brain hemorrhages during her time on the fantasy drama show, which left her feeling that she had “cheated death.”
She shared that after her second brain hemorrhage, she became convinced she was “meant to die,” during an appearance on the How To Fail with Elizabeth Day podcast.
The 39-year-old actress said: “I was just convinced that I had cheated death and I was meant to die. Every day, that's all I could think about.”
Clarke recalled suffering her first brain hemorrhage shortly after wrapping the show’s first season, reports people.com.
She said she had been stressed following the sudden changes in her life and career when she collapsed during a workout at a London gym.
“The closest thing to describe it is imagine an elastic band just snapping around your brain,” she said.
“This insane pressure.”
The actress recalled crawling to the bathroom and vomiting from the pain before realizing something was seriously wrong.
“In that moment, I knew I was being brain-damaged,” she said.
Clarke said she repeatedly reminded herself she was “an actor” while waiting for help because she had just landed her dream job and desperately wanted to hold onto it.
According to Clarke, doctors initially struggled to identify what was happening and assumed drugs could be involved because she was young. She was later transferred to a specialist hospital after a nurse suggested she receive a brain scan.
The actress said she spent the early weeks after the hemorrhage focused on convincing the show executives and the show’s creators that she would recover in time to continue working.
“I was so ashamed that this thing had happened and that the people who had employed me might see me as weak or see me as something that could be broken,” Clarke said.
Clarke later suffered a second aneurysm while living in New York and performing in a Broadway play. Doctors had been monitoring the aneurysm through regular scans after spotting it during treatment for the first hemorrhage.
She said the surgery to repair it went wrong, forcing doctors to perform emergency brain surgery.
“My parents were waiting for me, and the doctors would come down every half an hour and say, ‘We think she's going to die,’ ” Clarke recalled.
Following the second hemorrhage, Clarke said she struggled emotionally in ways she had not after the first.
“The biggest thing that happened to me with the second brain hemorrhage was I shut down emotionally,” she said.
Clarke said she became consumed with fear anytime she experienced a headache afterward, worrying another hemorrhage was happening.
While promoting Game of Thrones at San Diego Comic-Con shortly after one of her surgeries, Clarke remembered thinking, “'If I'm going to die, I'll do it on live TV.'”
Still, Clarke said continuing to work ultimately helped her survive emotionally.
“Without my work, I don't know what I would have done,” she said.
Clarke also revealed on the podcast that she did not allow herself much grace during recovery because she viewed the experience as a personal failure.