Emilia Clarke is one of the most well-known actresses in the world, with a big reason being her starring role as Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones. She was in all eight seasons of the HBO program, granting her four Emmy nominations during her run. The series follows her character as she attempts to cross the Narrow Sea, becoming the rightful heir to the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms.

Clarke has shared her struggles with her health in the past, which occurred during the filming of Game of Thrones. In 2019, the actress wrote a piece for The New Yorker titled, A Battle For My Life. In the essay, Clarke shares her previous issues, which arose in 2011 following the first season of the HBO series. At the time, she said, ‘I had an aneurysm, an arterial rupture.’

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In an interview with BBC’s Sunday Morning, Clarke shares more details regarding her recovery from her brain injuries and how lucky she is to function today. She explains that although she may have been optimistic in her original statement regarding the aneurysms, they are severe and life-threatening to the actress.

Clarke says there’s ‘quite a bit missing.’ from her brain, recalling previous scans done on her following the health scares.

“The amount of my brain that is no longer usable – It’s remarkable that I am able to speak, sometimes articulately, and live my life completely normally with absolutely no repercussions. I am in the really, really, really small minority of people that can survive that.”

Emilia is Making the Best of her Situation

     Paramount 

Despite her health problems, Emilia has made the best of it with the platform she’s given. She created SameYou; a charity focused on stroke and brain injury victims. The website says, ‘Creating the missing emotional & mental health recovery services essential for brain injury and stroke survivors.’ She told SundayMorning, ‘I thought, ‘Well, this is who you are, this is the brain that you have.’ So, there’s no point in continually wracking your brains about what might not be there."

“Strokes, basically, as soon as any part of your brain doesn’t get blood for a second, it’s gone. So, the blood finds a different route to get around, but then whatever bit is missing is therefore gone.”

Since her last surgery in 2013, Clarke has starred in significant blockbusters and continued her work on Game of Thrones until the end of the series in 2019. In addition, the actress has appeared in Terminator Genisys, Me Before You, Solo: A Star Wars Story, and Last Christmas.

Clarke will soon appear in Secret Invasion, a highly anticipated MCU show arriving at Disney+ sometime in 2023. The actress is also headed to the big screen, starring in McCarthy, a story looking at the influential former politician who rose to fame as a driving force behind anti-communist and anti-homosexual U.S. political sentiment during the Cold War. The film is currently in pre-production, so look to Secret Invasion for Emilia Clarke’s first return to entertainment since 2019.