Emilia Clarke has admitted she thought she would be fired from Game Of Thrones after suffering a brain bleed.
The 37-year-old actor starred in the fantasy series as Daenerys Targaryen but suffered a brain haemorrhage while exercising at a north London gym in 2011.
Clarke did not want to publicly share the news of his injury and kept it a secret from his colleagues on the program.
But she admitted she was worried bosses would think she wasn’t capable of doing her job after the brain bleed.
Doctors also discovered a second brain hemorrhage in 2013, while she was still acting on the series.
In a new interview with Big Issue, she discussed the difficulties of returning to work after her brain injury.
Clarke and her mother Jennifer Clarke, co-founders of the brain injury charity SameYou. Photo: PA
Clarke’s Big Issue cover
Clarke said: “When you have a brain injury, because it alters your sense of self on such a dramatic level, all the insecurities you feel walking into the workplace quadruple overnight.
“The first fear we all had was, ‘Oh my God, am I going to get fired? Am I going to get fired because they think I’m not capable of doing the job?'”
Clarke returned to work weeks after her first brain bleed, but she remembers fearing she would die from another bleed because of the stress and pressure of working in front of thousands of people and cameras.
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She added, “Well, if I’m going to die, I might as well die on live TV.”
After recovering from her injuries, Clarke and her mother, Jennifer Clarke, set up a charity to help people with brain injuries.
The mother-daughter duo even earned MBEs earlier this year for their work in setting up the SameYou charity.
Clarke previously spoke about how she felt “fragile, sensitive and scared” after her brain injury.
She said she was shocked to discover the understaffing of rehabilitation services – with rehabilitation since becoming the focus of her charity.
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