Queen of the Throne Age – GQ

Emilia Clarke a.k.a. Daenerys Targaryen a.k.a. Khaleesi

Queen of the Throne Age
by Daniel Riley

With her role as an exiled queen on Game of Thrones, Emilia Clarke converted a whole lot of fantasy-averse American men into swords-and-sorcery nerds. And she did it all while wearing nothing but her long platinum tresses and several clingy baby dragons. More accurately: because she wore nothing but her long platinum tresses and several clingy baby dragons.

Mother Of Dragons
HBO's Game Of Throne by George R.R. Martin

So now that you know, you totally see it, right? That even without that stare-at-the-sun-white wig, Emilia Clarke is totally her: Daenerys Targaryen, a.k.a. Khaleesi, a.k.a. the super-naked Mother of Dragons, a.k.a. the most immediately recognizable among the ninety-sevenish characters on Game of Thrones. "Which is exactly true, but also so funny, because I'm so immediately unrecognizable," Clarke says. "It takes a die-hard fan to actually spot me. These HBO events, where I'll be talking to someone for a fair amount of time, and then suddenly they're like, Oh shit! That's what you do!—they think I'm some crazy Brit who snuck her way into a Hollywood party." Which sounds like a nice deal for a suddenly very famous young actress—to hide in plain sight. But in Morocco, where Dany's season-three scenes were shot over six weeks last summer, might it have been tempting to stay in character sometimes? "I keep asking to go out with the wig at night, but they insist there's no way. They won't let me go partying with it on! I would be killed on the spot," she says. "It's silly to say, but when I take the wig off at the end of the day, I'm rather disappointed when I look in the mirror." Doubtful!

Emilia Clarke

But really, right now is good: critical love, and massive viewership, and job assurance, at least until HBO laps author George R.R. Martin's still unfinished saga, of which Clarke is a "genuine geek." Plus, she's plotting follow-ups to "my first real job." Like playing Holly Golightly on Broadway (opening this month), or maybe making a ballistic comedy (Clarke laughs as often as some people blink, and doesn't mind being seen around L.A. with Seth MacFarlane)—or, better, crashing her other favorite shows: "I'd give my right arm to be, like, a random extra on Girls, just to walk past one of the scenarios. I'd love that more than anything. Or, like, a meth head on Breaking Bad. It'd be like Where's Wally?!" (Which you've gotta hear— her true, highborn British accent pronouncing the book's true British title: Wally!) "Only, again, without the wig, they wouldn't recognize me." Like picking Waldo out of a crowd without his hat. Or his dragons. — GQ