Emilia Clarke has opened up about her experience surviving two brain aneurysms, expressing gratitude that she has been able to recover after losing “quite a bit” of the organ.

Clarke recalled her health troubles during an interview with the BBC’s Sunday Morning, in which she promoted her production of Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull” at the Harold Pinter Theater. The play marks the actress’ West End debut.

“It was the most excruciating pain,” Clarke said. “It was incredibly helpful to have ‘Game of Thrones’ sweep me up and give me that purpose.”

Clarke suffered two life-threatening brain aneurysms while working on the HBO series: the first in 2011, the second in 2013. Both medical emergencies necessitated lengthy recovery periods. Clarke first opened up about the difficult situation in 2019, with the assurance that she is now completely better.

“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,” Clarke stated. “I am in the really, really, really small minority of people that can survive that.”

Clarke then recalled the time she saw scans of her brain after the incidents.

“There’s quite a bit missing,” Clarke said before erupting into a big chuckle. “Which always makes me laugh… 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.”
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First of all, I would like to apologize for don’t upload the photos before but it is been a really hard month.

Emilia Clarke attends the opening of “The Seagull” at The Harold Pinter Theatre on July 07, 2022 in London. I have added some photos to the gallery.

We recently sat down with Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones), alongside fellow cast mates Indira Varma, Tom Rhys Harries and Daniel Monks, during rehearsals to discuss the upcoming West End revival of The Seagull.

She is best known for playing the fearless Daenerys Targaryen, Mother of Dragons, in Game of Thrones. But Emilia Clarke says she is “petrified” ahead of her UK stage debut in Chekhov’s The Seagull.

“I’m profoundly aware of the fact that there will be people who love Game of Thrones and are seeing it for that,” she tells the BBC.

“It’s 10 times more frightening because there’ll be people wanting to go and say, ‘Well she can only act on camera, she clearly can’t act on stage,’ which is obviously the biggest fear.”

But the British actress also hopes that by appearing in a play written in 1895, about a group of lonely Russians living on an isolated country estate, she will encourage a different audience to go to the theatre.

“Hopefully they’ll come and go, ‘We just came to see the Mother of Dragons, oh how frustrating, she’s not on a dragon, this isn’t what I paid for.’ Spoiler: I’m not on a dragon at any point during this play,” she laughs.

“But hopefully what they get, as a kind of little extra, is that they get to enjoy this play that they might not have seen otherwise.”

Clarke plays Nina opposite co-star Tom Rhys Harries, who portrays Trigorin.

But there is another layer of anxiety. After a frantic decade in which Clarke became a global superstar, had two brain haemorrhages and lost her beloved father to cancer, finally appearing in the West End is daunting because “it’s something I’ve wanted for so long”.

“It’s frightening because it’s a dream of mine finally realised,” she says.

All the more so because the production was due to open in March 2020, but closed after just four preview performances when the pandemic shut theatres.
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Full cast has been announced for The Seagull, which has found new dates in 2022 after being postponed by the pandemic.

Joining the cast alongside the previously announced Emilia Clarke (Nina), Tom Rhys Harries (Trigorin), Daniel Monks (Konstantin), Indira Varma (Arkadina) and Sophie Wu (Masha) are Jason Barnett (Shamrayev), Robert Glenister (Sorin), Mika Onyx Johnson (Medvedenko), Gerald Kyd (Dorn) and Sara Powell (Polina), with understudies Katie Buchholz, Tina Harris, Joseph Langdon and David Lee-Jones.

Anya Reiss’ adaptation of Chekhov’s play, which follows a group of despondent individuals confined to a house, has set and costume by Soutra Gilmour, lighting design by Jackie Shemesh, sound and composition by George Dennis, casting direction by Stuart Burt, costume supervision by Anna Josephs, props supervision by Fahmida Bakht, associate direction by Jonathan Glew and associate design by Rachel Wingate.

For certain Monday evening and Wednesday matinee performances there will be £15 seats available across the house exclusively for under 30s, key workers and those receiving government benefits.

There is an additional 5,000 free tickets for those with limited access to the arts, distributed by the company’s outreach manager.

The show runs from 29 June to 10 September 2022. Tickets are on sale. [Source]