Harper’s Bazaar: The ‘Game of Thrones’ star stuns as BAZAAR’s December/January covergirl.
“It’s this epic story: My grandmother was colonial Indian, and it was a big old family secret because her mum had an affair with someone in India,” says the English rose Emilia Clarke. “She would wear makeup to make her skin look white.” Granny passed away when Clarke was 16, and the teenager took off for India with her boyfriend to scatter the ashes. “She loved India more than she loved England,” Clarke says. “Fuck, yeah. I love that part of me—I’m like one-eighth Indian.”
Nationality is a fluid concept for the actress who speaks the fictional Dothraki language in Game of Thrones, played the flighty New Yorker Holly Golightly in Broadway’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and broke hearts as the working-class Brit Louisa in Me Before You. And now Dolce & Gabbana has her speaking Italian as the new face of its fragrance the One. Her first ad campaign for the house captures Clarke returning home to her imaginary Neapolitan family and enough pasta to feed a Targaryen army. And, mamma mia, does she love Italians. “People in Italy let you know how they feel,” she says. “I like that I don’t need to guess. There’s something so addictive about their personalities.”
