“Game of Thrones” actress Emilia Clarke said a brain injury caused by two brain aneurysms left her wondering if she’d survive, and questioning if life was even worth living if she lost her career.
“When you have a brain injury, because it alters your sense of self on such a dramatic level, all of the insecurities you have going into the workplace quadruple overnight,” Clarke told U.K. magazine, the Big Issue, in a recently published interview. She explained how her life-saving brain surgeries in 2011 and 2013 caused her to worry about what was coming next.
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Despite the life-altering diagnosis and the sudden reality of facing her mortality, Clarke was laser-focused on the impact her health was going to have on her career.
“The first fear we all had was: ‘Oh my God, am I going to get fired?,” she said.
She questioned what the future would hold.
“Am I going to get fired because they think I’m not capable of completing the job?” she recalled, according to Big Issue.
The famous actress played the role of Daenerys Targaryen in the hit HBO series from 2011 to 2019, and reflected on what it was like to confront her fears.
She said she thought she might suffer another brain hemorrhage as a result of the pressure of acting in front of a broad audience, and said she recalled thinking, “Well, if I’m going to die, I better die on live TV,” according to Big Issue.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 22: Emilia Clarke attends HBO’s Post Emmy Awards Reception on September 22, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Phillip Faraone/WireImage) Getty Images
“Having a chronic condition that diminishes your confidence in this one thing you feel is your reason to live is so debilitating and so lonely,” she said.
“One of the biggest things I felt with a brain injury was profoundly alone.”
She admitted to experiencing the feeling that she “couldn’t carry on,” during the low points of her medical challenges, but things soon took a turn and she now views things in a different light.
“It has given me a superpower,” she said about her brain injury.
LONDON, ENGLAND – MAY 25: Emilia Clarke attends the European film premiere “Me Before You” at The Curzon Mayfair on May 25, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Anthony Harvey/Getty Images)
Clarke’s first aneurysm caused a stroke and a subarachnoid hemorrhage and required brain surgery. During an essay written for The New Yorker in 2019 she revealed she was unable to recall her own name two weeks after the procedure.
“In my worst moments, I wanted to pull the plug,” she wrote at the time.(RELATED: Rodeo Star’s 3-Year-Old Son Pulled Off Life Support After Tragic Toy Tractor Accident)
“I asked the medical staff to let me die. My job – my entire dream of what my life would be – centered on language, on communication. Without that, I was lost.”
