Around 1.3 million people in the UK are living with the effects of a long-term brain injury but there is a lack of awareness around them. Emilia Clarke aims to change that
BIG ISSUE Emilia Clarke asked doctors to let her die when she had her first brain injury.
She thought she would never work again. She had aphasia which affected her speech, and if she could not speak, she could not act. If she could not act, she could not live.
“I didn’t see any point in carrying on,” the actor admits. It was the beginning of 2011 and Clarke had just finished filming the first season of Game of Thrones, the epic fantasy series which catapulted her to fame in her 20s for her starring role as Daenerys Targaryen, Mother of Dragons.
It was the first of two brain aneurysms which almost killed her and changed her life.
We meet in her small London office with its big wide windows and light pouring into the room. Clarke has deep eye contact beneath those beautifully expressive eyebrows, and an enormous smile.
Beyond Game of Thrones, she has starred in films including Me Before You, Last Christmas and Solo: A Star Wars Story and had stints on stage. From an outsider’s view, she is living her dream and seems to adore life and the people around her.
So how does it make her feel that she wanted to give it all up?
“I get it. That was what it felt like at the time. I think if someone said to me today that I won’t be able to communicate, I would probably say the same thing. I can feel empathy for how I felt in that moment.”
Her mother Jenny, sitting beside her and quietly listening to what must be painful words from her daughter, points out that many people have wonderful lives after losing their ability to communicate through a brain injury. Clarke agrees passionately.
“My entire job is reflecting life and humanity. In that moment, I felt that if I couldn’t do that one thing that I can do, I couldn’t see a way through it.
“If that had happened, I would have overcome it and something transformative would have happened. But I’m not going to sit here and say for one minute that the first time someone hears that, they aren’t going to think: ‘What’s the point?’”
But there is a point. There is life beyond brain injury. There is hope.
Emilia Clarke and her mother founded their charity SameYou in 2019 to develop better mental health recovery after brain injuries and advocate for change. They are now partnering with Big Issue Recruit to support survivors and their loved ones into work with the help of BIR specialist job coaches.
“Having a chronic condition that diminishes your confidence in this one thing you feel is your reason to live is so debilitating and so lonely,” Clarke, 37, recalls.
“One of the biggest things I felt with a brain injury was profoundly alone. That is what we’re trying to overcome.”
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