The 35-year-old actress previously revealed that she had survived two brain aneurysms in 2011 and 2013. An aneurysm is a swelling in a blood vessel caused by a weakness in the wall of the blood vessel, usually where it branches. Appearing on BBC One’s Sunday Morning on July 17, she said: “The amount of my brain that is no longer usable – it’s remarkable that I can talk, sometimes in denial, and live my life completely normally with absolutely no repercussions. “I’m in the really, really, very small minority of people who can survive this.” Speaking about her brain scans, Clarke said: ‘They’re missing quite a bit! Which always makes me laugh. “Because strokes, basically, once any part of your brain doesn’t get blood for a second, it’s gone. And so the blood finds a different route to move, but whatever part is missing, so it’s gone.” After the aneurysms, Clarke suffered from aphasia, at one point unable to remember her own name. Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington in “Game of Thrones” (HBO) Clarke’s memory is thankfully unaffected long-term, meaning she felt confident performing in the two-and-a-half-hour production of The Seagull at London’s Harold Pinter Theatre. Read the Independent’s review here. In 2019, Clarke launched a charity, SameYou, which aims to raise money for stroke and stroke survivors. Clarke played Daenerys Targaryen on Game of Thrones from 2011 to 2019.
