She has suffered extraordinary personal trauma, but the star has come out fighting, with an even more powerful on-screen presence and a heightened sense of purpose

Emilia Clarke is barefoot, running down a back street alongside London’s Savoy Hotel. Hitching her feathered Valentino dress up above her knees for extra speed, she flashes past, her hair flowing behind her. The photographer Betina du Toit snaps quickly, before they both retreat into the building, relieved not to have been caught by any security guards. “For the sake of fashion…!” Clarke exclaims.

The actress is clearly up for a challenge. And, over the past 12 years, there have been plenty of challenges, starting with growing up professionally on Game of Thrones, a series that was attracting an average of 44 million viewers when it concluded in 2019. The audience became so emotionally involved in her character Daenerys Targaryen’s trajectory from mild-mannered princess to the Mother of Dragons that, even now, some find it difficult to associate Clarke with anything else. Yet she has since taken on a variety of roles, including action heroines (she played Sarah Connor in Terminator Genisys, opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the resistance fighter G’iah in the latest Marvel spin-off series, The Secret Invasion) alongside leading parts, notably in Emma Thompson’s Last Christmas and the adaptation of Jojo Moyes’ novel Me Before You.

Clarke is unable to talk about any of these past projects, due to her support for the SAG-AFTRA strikes, and is thrilled that she’s forbidden from revisiting old Thrones ground (“because I have literally nothing new to say!”), as it frees her to discuss her forthcoming independent films and enterprises, as well as her side hustle creating comics. In 2020, she conceived and co-wrote, with the artist Leila Leiz, a satirical comic book titled MOM: Mother of Madness (which she characterises as “Deadpool meets Fleabag”) whose heroine is Maya, a single mother of an autistic son, who has special powers she can access when she has a period. “I wanted to use the menstrual cycle as an allegory for everything we don’t like about ourselves,” she says. “Periods make us feel insecure – I can still get embarrassed buying tampons in Sainsbury’s. I thought it was an interesting spin – that the thing we don’t like is actually what gives us our power.”
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Emilia Clarke is no stranger to projects that attract passionate fans prone to fervent discussions of even the most minute details.

The actor’s portrayal of Daenerys Targaryen, the exiled princess turned fierce Mother of Dragons on HBO’s hit epic fantasy “Game of Thrones,” has been seared into our collective conscious. Over the course of its eight-season run, audiences dissected, debated and speculated about the Emmy Award-winning series’ storylines, characters, continuity, lighting, bloopers and more.

Her big-screen roles such as Qi’ra, Han’s enigmatic and deadly ex-friend in “Solo: A Star Wars Story” (2018), as well as an alternate timeline Sarah Connor in “Terminator Genisys” (2015) brought her into two of the most beloved franchises.

Now, as part of Marvel’s “Secret Invasion,” Clarke has joined one of the biggest cinematic universes, and it marks her first television role since wrapping production of “Game of Thrones” in 2018. Developed for television by Kyle Bradstreet, the extraterrestrial political spy thriller is currently in the midst of its six-episode run on Disney+.

Clarke is plenty animated while discussing the series late in the afternoon during a press day in June, but her exuberance as she details her love of theater and how it’s an actor’s medium is when she most resembles the Marvel die-hards explaining the supremacy of certain MCU installments and characters over others.

“Yeah I get nerdy excited about it,” says Clarke as she expounds on the magic that happens both on and behind the stage. “I’m a theater kid. I’m a theater nerd.” She describes it as her “happy place,” after having grown up around the stage. Her father, Peter Clarke, was a sound designer for theaters, and she traces her love of the magic of storytelling and acting all the way back to those childhood memories with him. In 2022, she made her West End debut in Jamie Lloyd’s production of Chekhov’s “The Seagull,” which was initially postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

So it’s no surprise — aside from the chance to tackle something more “grounded” and “gritty” within the Marvel sandbox — Clarke cites the opportunity to work alongside her “Secret Invasion” castmates as one of the project’s main appeals. They are acting powerhouses, with innumerable credits both on-screen and on the stage.

“The cast is ridiculous,” says Clarke. “Olivia Colman, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Don Cheadle. I was like ‘where do I sign?’”
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Ahead of her British stage debut in The Seagull, the Game of Thrones star talks about her self-doubt as the hit show took off, her decision to write about her brain aneurysms – and showing her love through baking

On 16 March 2020, Emilia Clarke went on stage with the cast of The Seagull. Previews had started, and the actor was about to make her much-anticipated West End debut after a decade starring in some of the biggest films and TV shows imaginable. At the half-hour mark, everything stopped: the government had decreed that theatres were to shut with immediate effect. Lost and adrift, everyone huddled into a pub, which was filled with crowds from the surrounding theatres. “My lawyer from America was calling about something,” recalls Clarke now. “And she was like, ‘Get out of the pub!’ We had no idea of the enormity of it.”

Events, of course, got in the way. Two-and-a-bit years on, we meet at The Seagull rehearsal studios in south London, a cavernous former warehouse with a skeletal stage set up in the middle of it. Not much is known about Jamie Lloyd’s production of the classic Chekhov play, but hopefully it isn’t too much of a spoiler to say – based on a diorama sitting on a side table – that it will feature some chairs. “There are no distractions,” says Clarke. “We don’t have a samovar. There’s no linen. There aren’t any trees. No one’s in crinoline. What we’re doing could be seen as quite radical. I think it might be Marmite.”

The actor is no stranger to the divisive power of art – on which more later – but the spare and lean production marks a pronounced change from the jobs she has done since being catapulted into superstardom by Game of Thrones in 2011. Following the phenomenally successful HBO series, in which she portrayed Daenerys Targaryen, Clarke has starred alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator Genisys, played Han Solo’s love interest in Solo: A Star Wars Story and dressed as an elf in Paul Feig’s Emma Thompson-scripted romcom Last Christmas. She has won a Bafta Britannia award and been nominated for numerous Emmy, Screen Actors Guild and Critics’ Choice awards; in 2019, she was one of Time’s 100 most influential people.
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Emilia Clarke is known for playing some of the strongest female characters on screen. And that inner strength runs into her personal life too. Not only does she juggle the demands of a successful acting career, Emilia also runs SameYou – a charity for young adults recovering from brain injuries and stroke.

More recently, the 34-year-old’s bright smile, enviable brows and flawless skin have seen her step into a role as Clinique’s global brand ambassador. While it is a collaboration she says suits her perfectly, as the brand has been a “staple throughout her entire life”, Emilia also makes it clear that she sees beauty as more than just skin deep.

“Beauty comes from your individuality, that’s the essence of it,” she tells marie claire. “People are at their most radiant and most beautiful when they are doing what is the right fit for them.”

Emilia is a trailblazer for “less is more” when it comes to her beauty routine, but is at an age where she is looking for products that work smarter. She recently added Clinique Smart Clinical Repair Serum to her regimen – a high-performance, anti-ageing serum that combats fine lines and wrinkles and helps her streamline her routine.

“It’s a thing when you are at the point in your life when you’re like, ‘OK, I’m going to buy a product that says wrinkle on it’,” she shares.

MC’s beauty director Sally Hunwick caught up with Emilia to chat about her skincare philosophy, the products that work for her, and why she thinks laughter is self-care for the soul.

Sally: How important is keeping your skin in check?

Emilia: Massively! When I was little, my mum taught me to cleanse, tone and moisturise. It’s always been my thing. I’m also that weirdo that even when I’m drunk I remove my makeup and cleanse my face. I’ll wake up feeling awful, but my skin is thanking me! If you have good skin you are golden; everything goes good with good skin. Continue reading  »

“It’s skin care in a bottle.”

For years, Emilia Clarke was known as Daenerys Targaryen, the Mother of Dragons, on Game of Thrones, but over the last year in lockdown, Clarke has taken on a new title: Queen of the Kitchen.

“I was becoming a very brilliant baker—cookies, cakes, tarts, muffins, bread, tea cakes, brownies, blondies, everything,” Clarke tells Glamour via Zoom from London. “But then I had a damp in my kitchen and haven’t been able to do any baking. It’s getting fixed, but it’s been killing me. I’ve become obsessed with cooking.”

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the British actor gives 150% to just about everything in life. Whether it’s dyeing her hair platinum blond to make the process of transforming into Targaryen easier or holding her ground on not wanting injectables, Clarke is committed.

She applies that same passion to her role as Clinique brand ambassador. “My mum worked in skin care and makeup, so I was indoctrinated at a very young age,” she says. “She was teaching me to cleanse, tone, and moisturize from the age of 10, so I came into this industry ready and prepared it to take it to the next level. I know what works.”

And does she ever. During our Zoom, she pulls out product after product of what must be an off-camera Mary Poppins–like handbag, offering a must-have item for everything. Have super-dry skin? No problem, Clarke says. “I’m always looking for the perfect moisturizer, and I found it with the new Moisture Surge 100-Hour Auto-Replenishing Hydrator. It has aloe and hyaluronic acid, so at the end of the day, your skin is just as moisturized as when you put it on. It’s incredible.”

Looking for a new full-coverage-plus-SPF foundation that’s not thick or heavy? Clarke has a solution for that as well. “The Even Better Clinical Serum Foundation is my go-to because it’s skin care in a bottle and takes care of everything at once,” she says. “I don’t want to put three things on my face, I just want to put one thing on my face and I’m ready to go. Plus, it comes in so many different shades.” Continue reading  »