Honestly, it’s hard to imagine anyone else walking out of those ashes at the end of "Fire and Blood" with three baby dragons. But for a hot minute back in 2009, Emilia Clarke wasn't even in the picture. The story of Emilia Clarke Game of Thrones season 1 is actually a wild tale of last-minute recasting, near-death health scares, and a "horse heart" that tasted like a mix of bleach and old pasta.
Most fans don't realize that the original pilot for Game of Thrones was kind of a disaster. HBO hated it. They almost scrapped the whole show. In that version, Daenerys Targaryen was played by Tamzin Merchant. But something didn't click. The producers realized they needed someone who could go from a terrified girl to a stone-cold queen in ten episodes. Enter a then-unknown Emilia Clarke.
The Audition That Changed Everything
When Emilia showed up to audition, she was basically a kid fresh out of drama school. She had a couple of tiny credits to her name. One was a guest spot on the soap opera Doctors. The other was a TV movie called Triassic Attack. Not exactly "Mother of Dragons" material on paper.
During her audition for showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, she did the robot. Yes, seriously. After her dramatic scenes, she asked if there was anything else she could do, and when they suggested a dance, she leaned into the absurdity. It worked. They saw the spark. But the real work started when the cameras began rolling in the heat of Malta and the damp chill of Northern Ireland.
Why the Recasting Happened
Tamzin Merchant is a great actress, but the chemistry just wasn't right. Reports from the set of the unaired pilot suggested that the pivotal wedding night scene with Jason Momoa’s Khal Drogo felt off. HBO executives knew the Daenerys arc was the emotional backbone of the series. If people didn't believe her transformation, the show would fail.
Emilia brought a vulnerability that made the audience protective of her. You’ve seen the first few episodes lately? She’s almost silent. She’s a pawn. By the time we get to the Emilia Clarke Game of Thrones season 1 finale, she’s the one holding all the cards. That shift is what made her a star.
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The Reality of the Horse Heart Scene
Let’s talk about that horse heart. It’s one of the most iconic moments in TV history. Dany has to eat a raw stallion's heart to prove her strength to the Dothraki.
In reality, the prop department made a giant "heart" out of solidified jam and gelatin. It sounds like a big gummy bear, right? Wrong. Emilia has gone on record saying it was absolutely revolting. It had a "crunchy" texture because of some of the ingredients used to make it look like arteries.
- She had to eat roughly 28 of them over the course of filming that day.
- The "blood" was a sugary, sticky mess that acted like literal glue.
- Between takes, she actually got stuck to a toilet seat because the fake blood had dried on her skin.
The gagging you see in the episode? That wasn't acting. That was a human being trying not to vomit on Jason Momoa.
The Secret Health Crisis
This is the part that still breaks my heart. While the world was falling in love with the Khaleesi, Emilia was privately fighting for her life. Shortly after wrapping Emilia Clarke Game of Thrones season 1, she suffered her first brain aneurysm.
She was at a gym in North London when the pain hit—a "shooting, stabbing, constricting pain." She was 24 years old. She underwent an emergency three-hour surgery. When she woke up, she had aphasia. She couldn't remember her own name.
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Pushing Through for the Fans
Imagine being the face of the biggest new show on the planet and not being able to speak. She eventually recovered her speech, but she had a second, smaller aneurysm that doctors said could "pop" at any time. She didn't tell the public. She barely told her bosses. She sipped on morphine during press tours just to get through the day because the headaches were so bad.
It puts her performance in a whole new light. When you see her standing tall in those final scenes of the season, you’re looking at a woman who was terrified she was going to die before the next season even started.
Impact on the Industry and Her Career
The success of Emilia Clarke Game of Thrones season 1 changed how we look at female leads in fantasy. Before this, "strong female lead" usually just meant a woman who could fight. Dany was different. She was soft, then she was hard, then she was a leader.
| Fact Check | The Details |
|---|---|
| Salary | For Season 1, she wasn't making the millions she made later. She was on a standard "new actor" contract, though it was eventually negotiated up to over $1.2 million per episode by the end of the series. |
| Languages | She had to learn Dothraki, a fictional language created by David J. Peterson. She actually got so good at it she could improvising lines when the script changed last minute. |
| Nudity | She has been very vocal about how difficult those early scenes were. She was young and felt pressured, but later credited Jason Momoa for being protective of her on set. |
Honestly, her Dothraki was so convincing that people actually thought she was fluent in a real language. Years later, Peterson joked that she "sucked" at the pronunciation, which Emilia hilariously took to heart in interviews. But for the fans, she was the language.
What Most People Get Wrong
A common misconception is that Emilia was the producers' first choice. She wasn't. Another is that she loved the "Mother of Dragons" nickname immediately. In reality, she was just trying to keep her head above water. She was a young woman in a strange country (much of the Dothraki stuff was filmed in Malta) trying to ground a character that could have easily become a caricature.
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She also didn't have the "dragon budget" back then. In Season 1, those dragons were barely there. She was often acting against a green tennis ball on a stick or a small beanbag. To sell that level of emotion to a beanbag takes serious craft.
How to Revisit Season 1 Today
If you’re going back to watch it again, keep an eye on her eyes. The way she looks at Viserys changes so subtly from episode one to episode five. It’s a masterclass in "the quiet take-over."
- Watch the posture: She starts the season hunched, looking at the floor. By the end, her spine is like steel.
- Listen to the tone: Her voice drops an octave by the time she reaches the funeral pyre.
- Notice the costumes: As she loses her "Westeros" silk and moves into Dothraki leathers, her confidence visibly shifts.
Emilia Clarke’s journey in that first year set the template for the rest of the decade. She didn't just play a queen; she earned the title through some of the most grueling filming conditions in modern television.
To truly appreciate her work, you should look into her charity, SameYou, which she started after revealing her health struggles. It helps young people recovering from brain injuries. It’s the real-world version of her "Breaker of Chains" persona. You can also track down the few clips that exist of the original pilot online—it makes you realize just how much the show owed to her specific energy.