“Getting in it is like all the drinks and drugs; it’s that kind of euphoria,” the actress says. Find out what’s in the bath with her — plus the “bitchin'” moisturizer that gives her that glow — ahead.

For our March issue, InStyle sat down with the actress and Clinique global brand ambassador to hear about her skincare philosophy, her wondrous Game of Thrones wig (did we know she bleached her actual hair under that thing?!), and her meme-worthy bath routine. Find out all the beauty’s beauty secrets, below.

I know you have a thing for red lipstick. What’s your signature shade?

When you first get a red lipstick, you think you’ve got the one. Then you start to broaden out a bit. Now I’ve got hundreds. I find blue-toned reds really complementary. These days I’m being bolder and braver and rocking a red lipstick for lunch. Why not?

What products, besides red lipstick, make you feel good?

What I have learned as I’ve gotten older is that moisturizing does 80% of the heavy lifting. If you’ve got clean skin, moisturize, drink a shit ton of water, and think happy thoughts, that’s what does it. I used to have really dry skin and would use those thick creams that feel like you’re putting on medicine. Clinique has this Moisture Surge 100 Hour Auto-Replenishing Hydrator. Try saying that 10 times fast. It’s like the [brand’s] Moisture Surge 72-Hour Hydrator, which has a gel-like texture, but pimped out. It’s bitchin’!

How has your relationship with beauty shifted over the years?

When I was younger, it was armor. I don’t think I was the only woman in the world who couldn’t bear the thought of walking outside with absolutely no makeup on. Now I’m even more aware of how much skin care does versus makeup. The women who make me go, “Oh god, she’s so beautiful,” always have a luminous thing that comes from inside them.

You spent hours in the hair-and-makeup chair for Game of Thrones. Is there anything you miss about it?

That wig did wonders — bloody hell. It was like walking around with a permanent bounce. I was reminiscing with Kit [Harington, Jon Snow in GOT] the other day about the hours we pulled and how hard the work was. There’s a grieving process that goes on after the show, obviously, but I think we are now both finally at the point where we can say, “What bits do we miss?” It’s kind of like remembering a relationship.

Did you have to take extra care of your own hair after wearing that wig?

Fuck, yeah. [laughs] I decided to bleach my hair blond because I wanted it to be Daenerys’s color for the last season. My hair was so fried that I basically had to cut it all off, like a proper Leonardo DiCaprio, Romeo + Juliet boy cut. Now my hair has naturally grown out. I give it more nourishment than you could possibly imagine. It’s my proudest achievement, and I don’t plan on cutting it ever again. I’m going to be 90 with it down to my bum — that’s my plan.

What are you motivated by these days?

Myself. I’ve got a pretty strong voice in my head that tells me to get up. No bigger critic exists than me, and not in the healthiest way. The difficulty now is trying to find the balance between encouraging kindness to and motivating myself.

Are you a self-care kind of person?

For me, perfection begins and ends with a scalding-hot bath. Getting in it is like all the drinks and drugs; it’s that kind of euphoria. I add in Epsom salts and lavender oil, light candles, put on a face mask, and play classical music. I’m like a meme. You could have a glass of something with it, but my bath is too hot. If I’m scoffing wine, I’ll pass out. [Source]

For eight seasons on Game of Thrones, Emilia Clarke battled Dothraki, ice zombies, and Lannisters as the warrior queen Daenerys Targaryen. But unbeknownst to her fans and colleagues, the actress was also fighting a private battle: During her time on the show, she suffered two life-threatening brain aneurysms, which necessitated multiple surgeries and punishing recoveries. Clarke kept her health issues a secret until shortly before the premiere of Thrones’ final season, when she penned a widely acclaimed essay for The New Yorker detailing her fight for her health. In this excerpt from his new book, Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon: Game of Thrones and the Official Untold Story of the Epic Series, author James Hibberd reveals how Clarke kept working on the series while recovering from brain surgery.

Clarke wouldn’t reveal the real reason behind her exhaustion for another eight years. After filming Thrones season one, she had suffered a brain hemorrhage at a gym in London. “I immediately felt as though an elastic band were squeezing my brain,” Clarke wrote in The New Yorker. As she was rushed to the hospital, Clarke recalled lines of Daenerys Targaryen’s dialogue to try to calm herself. The actress underwent emergency surgery and for several days couldn’t even remember her own name, let alone speeches in Dothraki.

Somehow, just weeks later, Clarke returned to work on Thrones, despite still having a second growth on her brain that a doctor said might — in theory, though it was unlikely — “pop at any time.” Day after day on set, Clarke’s performance gave no indication of her fatigue, fear, and pain.

EMILIA CLARKE (Daenerys Targaryen): It was crazy intense. We are in the desert in a quarry in like 90-degree heat, and I had the consistent fear that I was going to have another brain hemorrhage. I spent a lot of time just being like: “Am I gonna die? Is that gonna happen on set? Because that would be really inconvenient.” And with any kind of brain injury, it leaves you with a fatigue that’s indescribable. I was trying so hard to keep it under wraps.

BRYAN COGMAN (co–executive producer): Only a very select few people knew about that. I was completely unaware. I heard a little bit that she had some problems between seasons, but nothing to that extent. And I had no clue while we were shooting.

ALAN TAYLOR (director): We were afraid for her. She’s so brave, because it never affected her commitment to the work. Continue reading  »

She’s a global star looking to open a post-dragon chapter in her career. He’s a little-known Australian actor who stunned critics with his UK stage debut. Together, they’re tackling Chekhov

‘Oh my GOD,’ roars Emilia Clarke in faux horror, after I tell her I’ve never watched ‘Game of Thrones’.

‘I should say I haven’t seen “Game of Thrones” either,’ ventures Daniel Monks, who’s co-starring with her in super-director Jamie Lloyd’s new production of Chekhov’s ‘The Seagull’.

‘I’m SURROUNDED!’ bellows the erstwhile dragon queen. ‘You’ve not even seen my FUCKING SHOW!’

‘But,’ interjects Monks, ‘I have seen every episode of Jonathan Van Ness’s “Gay of Thrones” [a video series in which the “Queer Eye” star recaps each episode of the fantasy show]. I know everything!’

‘It’s fine,’ Clarke sighs. ‘None of my friends have seen all of it either.’

‘She’s very good in this play and I’m sure she’s very good in “Game of Thrones”,’ affirms Monks.

The pair are clearly getting on like a house on fire – allies in what is a West End debut for both of them. But it’s astonishing what different journeys they’ve taken to be here, in the London Bridge rehearsal room of super-director Jamie Lloyd, preparing to play Nina and Konstantin, the damaged couple at the heart of Chekhov’s classic play ‘The Seagull’.

You probably know who Emilia Clarke is. Fresh out of drama school, she was snapped up to play Daenerys Targaryen in “Game of Thrones”, a role that swallowed the next decade of her life and made the motormouthed, swear-happy Brit a global superstar. If she hadn’t got that gig, she thinks she’d probably have ‘gone on to do six plays in theatres above a pub’. Continue reading  »

The actors bonded while filming Last Christmas, a rom-com cowritten by Thompson. The film’s message, per Thompson: “Love is the best tool that you have, but you better make sure that you direct it toward yourself first.”

Emilia Clarke was renovating her home when the Game of Thrones actor started filming Last Christmas, the holiday romantic comedy costarring and cowritten by Emma Thompson. The moment Thompson discovered that Clarke was spending her few hours off set in, essentially, a construction zone, the Oscar-winning actor and writer (Howards End, Sense and Sensibility) put an immediate stop to it.

“She was like, Darling, this is fucking ridiculous. Come and stay with me,” Clarke told Vanity Fair last month. “So I did. I lived in a flat that Emma had [down the road] from her house for a lot of the filming. She used to make me dinner every night…. We would just have a martini, digest the day, and then maybe watch a little something or read the paper. Then I’d go home and the next day we’d drive in together.”

Sometimes Thompson’s mother, the actor Phyllida Law, would join the duo. Other times, Clarke and Thompson would dig into Thompson’s stack of award screeners and unwind with a movie.

It was a nontraditional working relationship on a nontraditional romantic comedy. Last Christmas—based on the 1986 Wham! song—marked Thompson’s first rom-com. And Thompson—who had previously written Sense and Sensibility, Nanny McPhee, and Effie Gray—briefly panicked about the prospect of tackling the genre. Her worry faded, however, when she realized she would just do the rom-com her way. “It was so clearly not going to just be about two people who ought to be together,” Thompson told Vanity Fair in a separate interview. “It was so clearly going to be about one person figuring herself out as well.”

When audiences meet the film’s protagonist Kate (Clarke), she is hurtling between temporary housing situations. An aspiring singer who supports herself as a holiday-sales elf, Kate clacks aimlessly across London’s cobblestone streets with a suitcase in tow and a chip on her shoulder. Though Kate meets a romantic interest of sorts in Henry Golding’s Tom, the film primarily tracks her trajectory toward self-fulfillment and a repaired relationship with her mother (Thompson). Continue reading  »