Emilia Clarke says she felt pressured to do nude scenes on Game of Thrones
20 November 2019, 15:35
Emilia Clarke has opened up about how the nude scenes in 'Game of Thrones' made her feel.
Emilia Clarke is currently the star of new feel-good romcom Last Christmas, but before that she portrayed one of Games of Thrones' most important female characters – Daenerys Targaryen. The much-loved show ended in 2019 and had fans hooked for eight seasons. But, it hasn't been without its controversy. Many dragged the disappointing ending of the HBO programme, while the incest, rape and nude scenes have been heavily criticised.
Now Emilia has revealed that she was actually pressured into those scenes. Speaking on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast, Emilia admitted that she struggled with the nude scenes towards the end of the show.
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"I took the job and then they sent me the scripts and I was reading them, and I was like, 'Oh, there’s the catch!'" she explained. "But I'd come fresh from drama school and I approached it as a job: if it’s in the script, then it’s clearly needed. This is what this is and I’m going to make sense of it and that’s what I’m going to do and everything’s going to be cool.
"I’ve never been on a film set like this before. I'd been on a film set twice before then, and I’m now on a film set completely naked with all of these people, and I don’t know what I’m meant to do, and I don’t know what’s expected of me, and I don’t know what you want, and I don’t know what I want. Regardless of there being nudity or not, I would have spent that first season thinking I’m not worthy of requiring anything. I’m not worthy of needing anything at all."
Emilia said that she even had "fights" regarding nudity, and she was once told that she’d "disappoint her Game of Thrones fans" if she didn't film naked. She added: "I had fights on set before where I’m like, 'No, the sheet stays up,' and they’re like, 'You don’t wanna disappoint your Game of Thrones fans.' And I’m like: 'Fuck you.'"
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Daenerys had sex scenes with her husband Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa) and Jon Snow (Kit Harington), while she also appeared nude in episode four of season six, when Daenerys emerged from a burning building and destroys her enemies while naked. In the end, it was actually Jason who helped her to be more vocal about her boundaries on set.
She continued: "It was definitely hard. Which is why the scenes, when I got to do them with Jason, were wonderful, because he was like, 'No, sweetie, this isn’t OK.' and I was like, 'Ohhhh.' […] He was always like, 'Can we get her a fucking robe? She’s shivering!'
"He was so kind and considerate and cared about me as a human being."
