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On Variety’s Power of Women, Clarke spoke about her two brain hemorrhages, survivor’s guilt, and the recovery that continues for years after everyone thinks you’re fine.
Emilia Clarke became world famous as Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones at the same time she was trying to survive two brain hemorrhages.
Speaking at Variety ‘s Power of Women in London, the 39-year-old actress described the unseen side of recovering from a brain injury, saying that for years she felt like she had “cheated death” and that it was “coming to get her.”
“I really felt like I had done something wrong and that I shouldn’t be here,” Clark said. She added, with humor, that she believed the bleeding had also damaged her ability to play, “which some people might agree with.”
The first brain hemorrhage occurred after the first season of Game of Thrones, when the series was just starting to make her famous around the world. The second came a few years later, around the time she made her Broadway debut in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
As she explained, she didn’t have the time or space to understand what had happened to her. She was able to walk, talk, remember her words, and be back in front of the camera within a few weeks. So everyone believed she was fine. She tried to believe the same.
“I never had a chance to think about what the two brain injuries had done to me,” she said. For years, she blamed her exhaustion, anxiety, pain, and physical symptoms on stress and the relentless pace of her work. She said she couldn’t see the pattern and ended up blaming herself.
Clarke particularly emphasized the fact that brain injuries don’t end the moment someone leaves the hospital. They can leave physical, cognitive, emotional, or language consequences, but also a trauma that often remains invisible, especially when the person “seems fine.”
“When everyone around you thinks you look good, they treat you like you are good. And over time you start to think you should be too,” he said.
In 2019, Clarke co-founded the charity SameYou, which supports people recovering from brain injuries, with her mother, Jenny Clarke. She said that after she shared her story publicly, many young people began writing to her about their own experiences, describing recovery as “falling into the void with no one to hold you.”
In her speech, the actress stressed that survival is not enough without real support afterward. “Recovery is just as important as survival,” she said, insisting that people need guidance, answers, physical and mental care.
“When you think about who you are, your personality, your intelligence, your humor, your memories — where do all of those things live? In your head. And when that betrays you, you can lose confidence in yourself. It can leave you scared and convinced that you’ll never be who you were again,” he said.
And he concluded: “But we know that it is possible to return to yourself. That’s where the name comes from: SameYou.”