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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Aug 17, 2023
