Emilia Clarke

Emilia Isobel Euphemia Rose Clarke (born 23 October 1986) is an English actress.

Emilia Isobel Euphemia Rose Clarke was born on 23 October 1986 in London.

She grew up in Oxfordshire.

Her father, Peter Clarke, was a theatre sound engineer from Wolverhampton.

Her mother, Jennifer, was a businesswoman and is the vice-president for marketing at a global management consultancy firm.

She has an older brother, Bennett, who works in the entertainment industry and was part of the camera department on Game of Thrones.

Clarke is Anglo-Indian, of maternal Indian origin.

Her maternal grandmother was the child of a secret affair between Clarke's great-grandmother and a man from the Indian subcontinent, and wore light make-up to conceal the darker complexion she had inherited from her father.

She credits this background for her family's having a "history of fighters", stating, "The fact that [my grandmother] had to hide her skin colour, essentially, and try desperately to fit in with everyone else must've been incredibly difficult."

She stated that her grandmother "loved India more than she loved England" and as such, when she died, sixteen-year-old Clarke travelled to India to scatter her ashes.

Clarke has also emphasised her ties to India, stating that she loves her Indian heritage and sees it as an integral part of her identity.

Clarke became interested in acting at age three after seeing a production of the musical Show Boat.

When she was ten, her father took her to a West End audition for The Goodbye Girl, a musical by Neil Simon.

Clarke was educated at Rye St Antony School in Headington and St Edward's School, Oxford, which she left in 2005.

Her television debut was a guest appearance in the BBC One medical soap opera Doctors in 2009, at age 22.

She worked and travelled before enrolling at Drama Centre London, where she graduated in 2009.

Clarke started to act in stage productions while attending school.

She appeared in student productions of Twelfth Night and West Side Story while attending St Edward's School.

After taking a sabbatical year, she was accepted into Drama Centre London.

Clarke also appeared the 2009 production of Sense, co-produced by theatre company Company of Angels and Drama Centre London.

One of her first film roles was in Drop the Dog, a University of London student short film.

She graduated from drama school in 2009.

She worked at various non-acting jobs after graduating while auditioning for roles.

She starred in two commercials for the charity Samaritans, portraying a domestic abuse victim.

Her first credited television role was a bit part in a 2009 episode of the British soap opera Doctors.

Clarke was cast in her first professional film role, playing Savannah in the 2010 television film Triassic Attack.

The film was released in November 2010 on the Syfy channel in the United States where it received negative reviews.

Despite the film's reviews, she was named a "UK Star of Tomorrow" by the film magazine Screen International.

Clarke was cast in her third professional role in 2010, as Daenerys Targaryen in the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones.

It is based on the fantasy book series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin.

Daenerys is one of the last surviving members of House Targaryen who had ruled Westeros from the Iron Throne for nearly three hundred years prior to being ousted.

She is best known for her portrayal of Daenerys Targaryen in the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones (2011–2019), for which she received nominations for four Primetime Emmy Awards.

Clarke made her Broadway debut as Holly Golightly in the 2013 play Breakfast at Tiffany's, and played Nina in a West End production of The Seagull that was suspended due to the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Her film roles include Sarah Connor in the science fiction film Terminator Genisys (2015), Qi'ra in the Star Wars film Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), and the romance films Me Before You (2016) and Last Christmas (2019).

She starred as G'iah in the Marvel Cinematic Universe miniseries Secret Invasion (2023).

In a 2016 interview with Time Out, she stated "I went to posh boarding schools, but I wasn't the posh girl at the posh boarding schools."

She also stated that most of the people at her boarding school in Oxford were from Conservative backgrounds, which meant she and some of her friends often felt like outsiders.

After graduation, Clarke unsuccessfully applied to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

She is also known for her role in the Star Wars film Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) and the romantic dramas Me Before You (2016) and Last Christmas (2019).

Clarke studied at Drama Centre London, appearing in a number of stage productions.