Quite a few nude scenes and sex scenes were thrown Emilia Clarke’s way during her (controversial) reign on Game of Thrones, which, as she’s previously discussed, were mostly relegated to the first half of the series before she became more assertive with what she would and wouldn’t do with her body. Now, though, Clarke is opening up about how this type of coercion still unfortunately persists in her post-GOT projects, with the show serving as the go-to excuse to request moments of nudity from her. “I’m a lot savvier with what I’m comfortable with, and what I am okay with doing,” Clarke explained on a recent episode of Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast. “I’ve had fights on set before where I’m like, ‘No, the sheet stays up,’ and they’re like, ‘You don’t wanna disappoint your Game of Thrones fans.’ And I’m like, ‘Fuck you.’”
Clarke credits Jason Momoa, who was her frequent GOT scene partner, for encouraging her to vocalize when she felt nudity became a “fuckton” or too gratuitous, both within the world of Westeros and beyond. “I’m floating through this first season and I have no idea what I’m doing; I have no idea what any of this is,” she recalled about the show. “I’ve never been on a film set like this before, I’d been on a film set twice before then, and I’m now on a film set completely naked with all of these people, and I don’t know what I’m meant to do, and I don’t know what’s expected of me, and I don’t know what you want, and I don’t know what I want. Regardless of there being nudity or not, I would have spent that first season thinking I’m not worthy of requiring anything; I’m not worthy of needing anything at all.”
Or, as Clarke has put it: Like a good Mother of Dragons, she’s always in control.
