Emilia Clarke is lucky to be alive after experiencing two brain aneurysms while filming the early seasons of “Game of Thrones.”
The actor recounted surviving the terrifying medical ordeal in a new interview with BBC’s “Sunday Morning” program over the weekend.
“It was just the most excruciating pain,” the actor said of the aneurysms. “It was incredibly helpful to have ‘Game of Thrones’ sweep me up and give me that purpose.”
Clarke said there is an “amount of my brain that is no longer usable” and there’s “quite a bit missing.”
“Strokes, basically, as soon as any part of your brain doesn’t get blood for a second, it’s gone,” Clarke explained. “So the blood finds a different route to get around, but then whatever bit it’s missing is therefore gone.”
She added that given the amount of brain that is no longer usable, it is “remarkable that I am able to speak ― sometimes articulately ― and live my life completely normally with absolutely no repercussions.”
Clarke first revealed that she suffered the aneurysms in a 2019 first-person essay for The New Yorker, titled “A Battle for My Life.” She experienced the first aneurysm in 2011 after filming the first season of “Game of Thrones” and later survived a second one in 2013, after filming Season 3.
“With the second one, there was a bit of my brain that actually died,” Clarke said during a 2019 interview with CBS “Sunday Morning.” She added that doctors weren’t sure at the time about what specifically she lost as a result of the damage.
“I always say it’s my taste in men. … That’s the part of my brain [I lost], my decent taste in men,” the actor quipped.