DAILY MAIL – Emilia Clarke discussed her torment over suffering from a second brain aneurysm in a new interview with Wonderland Magazine, on Friday.

The Game Of Thrones star, 33, revealed her fear that someone would recognise her while she was at her most vulnerable and fighting for her life.

Of being treated in hospital, she said: ‘[With] the second one, I lost a lot of hope; I lost a lot of optimism. That’s insane bad luck.

But there I was in a f***ing American hospital with drains coming out of my head, fully swollen, full of all the drugs they give you, and all I could think was, “please don’t recognise me, please don’t recognise me, please don’t recognise me.”‘

While she accepted that working on a show as popular as Game Of Thrones meant she ‘signed up for’ attention from fans wherever she goes, she explained some of the struggles she had while out during the tough period of her life.

‘This is where you very quickly sound like a complete f***king d**k because we signed up for this, we asked for this, it’s part of the job,’ she explained.

‘And then you’re in a shopping centre with your mum who is crying over your recently dead dad and someone comes up and asks you for a picture and you say no and they’re like, “I expected better from you, I thought more of you than that.”‘

Describing the incident as ‘scary as all hell,’ Emilia admitted the headache caused by the aneurysm ‘is the worst pain you can possibly imagine.’

‘As I was throwing up I knew I was being brain damaged, but I didn’t know how I knew. And I was like, no, f*** this, not today, it’s not happening.

‘I was wiggling fingers and toes, thinking of lines from the season, trying to do everything I could to keep myself conscious because I could feel myself slipping into a coma.’

Emilia went on to say: ‘I do feel like the brain haemorrhages are the literal, physical embodiment of what it is to be attacked on a social media, because I didn’t want to look anyone in the eye, and I didn’t want anyone to recognise me.

‘I wanted to disappear completely, to wipe myself off the face of the earth, because I couldn’t handle the level of interaction. Because I felt totally laid bare, totally vulnerable, totally in pain.’

She then admitted that playing Daenerys Targaryen in the hit fantasy series helped her through the ‘many waves of stuff to chew over – the fame, the brain haemorrhages, my dad dying.’

‘For me, the show became my escape from all of it. If I was changing, I wasn’t really aware of it. All the change was done for me,’ she said positively. ‘Because she did it. Daenerys Stormborn, Mother of Dragons. F***ing Game of F***ing Thrones.’

Emilia spoke candidly about her health scares in March earlier this year, when she revealed she underwent two life-saving surgeries in the course of eight years to correct two different aneurysm growths.

The film star also credited her mum for being the ‘greatest support’ as she tried to recover from the ordeal while battling with aphasia [loss of speech].

She said: ‘There was also my mum, when she went into mum superpower in the hospital: I had aphasia [loss of speech], and she looked at me and went, ‘Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.’

‘She made me believe she understood exactly what I was saying. It was genuinely her greatest moment.’

Following her health battle, Emilia launched the charity SameYou, which helps raise money for people recovering from brain injuries and strokes.

She also became an ambassador for the Royal College of Nursing in 2018, after being met with ‘kind’ nurses during her time in hospital.

Read the full interview in Wonderland Magazine, which is available now.