The Game of Thrones Cast at the Last Script Reading
Emilia Clarke read a paragraph in the final script for Game of Thrones.
She read it once again and again. Seven times, she says, she read the words that revealed the devastating fate of Daenerys Targaryen, a graphic symbol she'due south portrayed on the HBO global phenomenon for nearly a decade.
"What, what, what, WHAT!?" the actress recalls thinking. "Considering it comes out of f—king nowhere. I'm flabbergasted. Absolutely never saw that coming."
It was October 2017. The actress had recently completed filming Solo: A Star Wars Story and had merely returned to London following a brief vacation. She electronically received the scripts the moment she landed at Heathrow and recalls that she "completely flipped out," turned to her traveling companion and said, "'Oh my god! I gotta go! I gotta become!' And they're like, 'You gotta go your bags!'"
Once at home, the actress prepared herself. "I got myself situated," she says. "I got my cup of tea. I had to physically ready the space and and then begin reading them."
Clarke swiped through pages: Daenerys arrives at Winterfell and Sansa doesn't like her. She discovers Jon Snow is the true heir to the Iron Throne and isn't thrilled. She fights in the battle against the Night King and survives, but loses longtime friend and protector Ser Jorah Mormont. Then her other close friend and advisor Missandei dies besides. Varys betrays her. Jon Snowfall pulls away. Having lost one-half her regular army, 2 dragons, and most everybody she cares about, Daenerys goes full Tagaryen to win: She attacks Rex's Landing and kills … thousands of civilians? Daenerys' longtime conquest achieved, she meets with Jon Snow in the Red Proceed throne room and … and then … then he …
"I cried," Clarke says. "And I went for a walk. I walked out of the house and took my keys and phone and walked back with blisters on my feet. I didn't come dorsum for five hours. I'grand like, 'How am I going to exercise this?'"
Two days later, Clarke was on a plane to Belfast for the concluding flavour tabular array read.
Sitting next to Clarke on the flying, as it and so happens, was Kit Harington, who plays Jon Snow. Harington deliberately hadn't nonetheless read the scripts and so he could feel the story for the kickoff time with all his castmates. Clarke, positively bursting with wanting to talk almost her storyline, found the flight maddening. "This literally sums upwardly Kit and I's friendship," she says, and sputtered: "Boy! Would you? Seriously? Yous're just not?…"
At the table read, Clarke saturday across from Harington then she could "watch him compute all of this." When they got to their terminal scene together, recalls Harington, "I looked at Emilia and in that location was a moment of me realizing, 'No, no…'"
And Clarke nodded dorsum, sadly, 'Yes…'
"He was crying," Clarke says. "And and so it was kind of groovy him not having read it."
The main story driver of Game of Thrones' final season is the development of Daenerys Targaryen from one of the evidence's almost-loved heroes into a destroyer of cities and would-be dictator. Author George R.R. Martin calls his saga "A Song of Ice and Burn down." Jon Snow is the stable, immovable ice of Winterfell; Daenerys the conquering, unpredictable burn of Dragonstone. Later years apart, they came together in season 7. The duo fell in love, help saved the realm from a world-annihilating supernatural threat and, in the series finale, their coupling is destroyed — Daenerys perishes, while a devastated Jon Snow is banished to rejoin the Nighttime'south Watch.
Was this catastrophe Martin's original program? The author told showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss the intended conclusion to his unfinished novels years ago just, since then, the HBO version has fabricated several narrative detours. The showrunners are not giving interviews almost episode vi (and told EW they plan to spend the finale offline — "boozer and far away from the Internet" equally Benioff put it).
Regardless of the final season's narrative's origin, the Thrones writers have planned Dany's fate for years and have foreshadowed the dark turn in the storyline. In previous seasons, producers would sometimes enquire Clarke to play a scene a bit different than what she expected for a seemingly heroic graphic symbol. "There's a number of times I've been like: 'Why are you giving me that annotation?'" Clarke says. "So yes, this has made me await back at all the notes I've ever had."
After Episode 5, "The Bells," the reaction to Dany's "Mad Queen" plow has been explosive and frequently negative. Some critics insist Daenerys doesn't have the capacity for such monumental evil and the twist is an example of female characters being mishandled on the series. Others say Dany'due south unstable sociopathic tendencies were indeed established, but the final flavour moved too fast and flubbed its execution.
For Clarke, the final season arc required mapping out a serial of turning points. Dany's attack on King'due south Landing might accept seemed sharp, but from the beginning of the season Daenerys has reacted with increasing acrimony, desperation and coldness to one setback after some other, shifting the Mother of Dragons into new emotional territory that would ultimately lead to her destruction.
Sitting in her dressing room on the set of Thrones final spring, Clarke broke downwards Daenerys' entire season eight internal journey leading upward to the apocalyptic Male monarch'southward Landing firebombing in a unmarried breathless monologue.
"She genuinely starts with the best intentions and truly hopes there isn't going to be something scuttling her greatest plans," she says. "The problem is [the Starks] don't like her and she sees it. She goes, 'Okay, one hazard.' She gives them that run a risk and it doesn't work and she's too far to plough around. She'south made her bed, she's laying in it. It'due south done. And that's the matter. I don't think she realizes until it happens — the real consequence of their reactions on her is: 'I don't requite a s—t.' This is my whole beingness. Since birth! She literally was brought into this world going, 'Run!' These f—kers accept f—ked everything up, and now information technology's, 'You're our only hope.' There's so much she'due south taken on in her duty in life to rectify, and so much she'due south seen and witnessed and been through and lost and suffered and injure. Suddenly these people are turning around and saying, 'We don't accept you.' But she's too far down the line. She'southward killed so many people already. I tin't turn this ship around. It's too much. One by one, yous run into all these strings being cut. And there's just this last thread she's belongings onto: There's this boy. And she thinks, 'He loves me, and I think that's enough.' Simply is it enough? Is it? And information technology's just that promise and wishing that finally in that location is someone who accepts her for everything she is and … he f—king doesn't."
And losing Missandei? "At that place's a number of turning points yous encounter for Daenerys in the season, but that's the biggest break. There's nothing I will not exercise afterward losing Missandei and seeing the sacrifice she was prepared to make for her. That breaks her completely. In that location's nothing left to making a tough choice."
Executing Varys for treason? "She f—king warned him last season. We dearest Varys. I love [actor Conleth Hill]. Just he changes his colors as many times as he wants. She needs to know the people who are supporting her regardless. That was my only pick, essentially, is what I mean."
Burying Cersei Lannister under the collapse of the Red Keep? "With Cersei, it'due south a consummate no-brainer. Lady's a crazy motherf—ker. She'south going down."
Yet Clarke as well had another, more than personal reaction to Dany'due south meltdown. "I have my own feelings [about the storyline] and it's peppered with my feelings nigh myself," she admits. "Information technology's gotten to that point now where you read [comments well-nigh] the character you [have to remind yourself], 'They're not talking about you, Emilia, they're talking nearly the character."
Like many actors who take played the aforementioned function for a long time, Clarke identifies with her character and has put much of herself into the function. She believes in Daenerys' confidence, idealism and past acts of compassion. As the actress wrote in a New Yorker essay in March, she played the Breaker of Bondage through some life-threatening personal hardships, secretly enduring ii brain aneurysms during her early on years on the show. "You lot become on set and play a badass and you walk through burn down and that became the matter that saved me from because my own mortality," she wrote. Clarke has drawn strength from Daenerys and infused Daenerys with her strength.
"I genuinely did this, and it'south embarrassing and I'm going to admit information technology to y'all," Clarke says. "I called my mom and—" Clarke shifts into a tearful vocalization to perform the conversation as she reenacts the call: "I read the scripts and I don't desire to tell you what happens but can you merely talk me off this ledge? It actually messed me up.' And and then I asked my mom and brother actually weird questions. They were similar: 'What are you asking u.s. this for? What practice you mean do I think Daenerys is a good person? Why are you lot asking usa that question? Why do y'all care what people think of Daenerys? Are you lot okay?'"
"And I'thousand all: 'I'k fine! … Merely is at that place anything Daenerys could do that would brand you hate her?'"
During EW's visit to Northern Ireland last March, I took a walk with co-executive producer Bryan Cogman into the dark woods about the production camp. Information technology was around midnight and bitterly cold. Our boots scrunched on the muddy gravel and the bustling sounds of crew activity from the set up slowly receded into the distance.
"Emilia has been threading that needle beautifully this season," Cogman says. "It'due south the hardest job anybody has on this show."
Every bit we pass crew members our voices cautiously get silent. While Dany's Mad Queen arc was known past all, her death in the finale was a secret fifty-fifty among many who work on the evidence. Killing Daenerys was a massive and hard movement. On a evidence that'southward introduced dozens of distinctive breakout characters, Daenerys is arguably the most easily identifiable and iconic. She is T-shirts and coffee mugs and posters and bobbleheads and memes and the name of hundreds of kids around the world with GoT fan parents; a fearless figure of female empowerment.
"I still don't know how I feel about a lot of what happens this season and I helped write it," Cogman says. "It's emotionally very challenging. Information technology's designed to not feel skillful. That said, I don't call up that's a bad thing. The best drama is the blazon y'all have to call back about. There's a dangerous tendency right now to brand art and popular culture to feel safe for everybody and make everybody feel okay when watching and I don't believe in that. The show is messy and grey and that's where it'southward ever lived — from Jaime pushing a trivial boy out the window to Ned Stark's death to the Scarlet Nuptials. This is the kind of story that'south meant to unsettle you and challenge you lot and make you remember and question. I recollect that was George's intent and what David and Dan wanted to do. Still you feel about the final episodes of this show I don't retrieve everyone volition ever accuse us of taking the easy way out."
I point out Daenerys' final season arc shifts the entire serial, or at to the lowest degree her office in it. Upon rewatch, every Daenerys scene will at present exist viewed differently; the story of the ascent of a villain more than a hero.
"Yes, although I don't know if she'southward a villain," Cogman says. "This is a tragedy. She's a tragic effigy in a very Shakespearean and Greek sense. When Jon asks Tyrion [in the finale] if they were wrong and Tyrion says, 'Enquire me once more in x years,' I think that's valid."
Tyrion player Peter Dinklage says the showrunners on set compared Dany's dragon-bombing of King'due south Landing to the U.Due south. dropping nuclear bombs on the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki to decisively stop World State of war II in 1945. "That'southward what war is," Dinklage says. "Did we brand the right choices in war? How much longer would [WWII] have gone on if we didn't make horrible decisions? We dear Daenerys. All the fans love Daenerys, and she'south doing these things for the greater adept. 'The greater good' has been in the headlines lately… when freeing anybody for the greater good you're going to injure some innocents along the mode, unfortunately."
Gwendoline Christie, who plays Brienne of Tarth, adds there'south another political lesson to be learned in the final season as well. "The signs have really ever been there," Christie says of Daenerys. "And they've been there in ways we felt at the time were just mistakes or controversial. At this time, it's of import to question true motives. This bear witness has e'er been about power and, more than always, it's an interesting illustration that people in pursuit of power can come in many different forms and nosotros need to question everything."
Killing Daenerys likewise forever changes Jon Snowfall, leading to his round fate: returning to serve the rest of his life at The Wall. Harington spoke about the show's finale in a production tent on the flavor viii gear up, his voice so cautiously low a recorder could barely pick him up. Harington explained he avoids talking most the death scene on the set up, and he and Clarke came up with a undercover hand signal to refer to it — touching a fist to their heart.
"I call up it's going to divide," Harington says of the finale'south fan reaction. "But if you lot track her story all the way back, she does some terrible things. She crucifies people. She burns people alive. This has been building. So, nosotros have to say to the audience: 'You lot're in deprival nearly this woman as well. Yous knew something was incorrect. You lot're culpable, you cheered her on.'"
Harington adds he worries the final ii episodes will be accused of being sexist, an ongoing criticism of GoT that has recently resurfaced perhaps more than pointedly than e'er before. "One of my worries with this is we have Cersei and Dany, two leading women, who autumn," he says. "The justification is: Just because they're women, why should they be the goodies? They're the almost interesting characters in the show. And that's what Thrones has always done. You lot can't merely say the strong women are going to end upward the expert people. Dany is non a good person. It'southward going to open up discussion but there'due south nothing done in this show that isn't truthful to the characters. And when have you lot ever seen a woman play a dictator?"
There's plenty of tragedy for Jon as well, he points out. "This is the 2d woman he's fallen in dearest with who dies in his artillery and he cradles her in the same way," Harington notes. "That'south an awful thing. In some means, Jon did the same thing to [his Wildling lover] Ygritte past training the boy who kills her. This destroys Jon to do this."
Back in Clarke's dressing room, the extra is preparing to motion picture one of her final scenes on the serial. Understandably, she tin't quite bring herself to feel sorry for Jon Snow.
"Um, he just doesn't like women does he?" Clarke quips. "He keeps f—male monarch killing them. No. If I were to put myself in his shoes I'm non sure what else he could have done aside from … oh, I dunno, maybe having a discussion with me almost it? Ask my stance? Warn me? It's similar being in the middle of a phone call with your boyfriend and they simply hang up and never phone call you again. 'Oh, this cracking thing happened to me at work today — hi?' And that was 9 years ago…"
Clarke's phone phone call metaphor is characteristically witty, and the actress has given some fascinating insight nearly the flavour as a whole. Just nothing yet quite feels like the bottom, the blunt truth of how she feels about Daenerys' fate.
"You're about to ask if me — every bit Emilia — disagreed with her at any point," Clarke intuits. "It was a f—male monarch struggle reading the scripts. What I was taught at drama schoolhouse — and if you print this at that place will be drama school teachers going 'that's bulls—t,' merely hither nosotros go: I was told that your character is correct. Your graphic symbol makes a pick and you lot need to be right with that. An actor should never be afraid to look ugly. Nosotros have uglier sides to ourselves. And later on 10 years of working on this show, it's logical. Where else can she go? I tried to recollect what the ending will be. Information technology's not similar she's all of a sudden going to become, 'Okay, I'm gonna put a kettle on and put cookies in the oven and we'll just sit downwards and have a lovely time and pop a few kids out.' That was never going to happen. She's a Targaryen."
"I thought she was going to dice," she continues. "I feel very taken intendance of every bit a grapheme in that sense. Information technology'due south a very beautiful and touching ending. Hopefully, what you'll see in that last moment as she's dying is: At that place's the vulnerability — at that place'south the little girl you met in flavor i. Meet? She'due south right in that location. And now, she's not in that location anymore…"
A crew member comes for Clarke and she stands upwardly. It's time for her to become. Clarke begins to walk abroad, turns around, breaks away from the staffer, and comes back.
There's one concluding thing she wants yous to know.
"But having said all of the things I've just said…" Clarke says. "I stand by Daenerys. I stand by her! I tin't non."
Source: https://ew.com/tv/2019/05/19/game-thrones-finale-interview-emilia-clarke/
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