
VOGUE – Since 2015, Chanel and Tribeca Enterprises (founded by Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal) have selected young, female and/or nonbinary filmmakers to participate in their joint mentorship fund competition Through Her Lens. The candidates, a group of about 10, get paired up with mentorsâexperts in script-to-screen development, casting, music composition, costume design, producing, and directingâand because Chanel is involved, the group is always top-notch, made up of the discerning sorts of figures you might expect to see sitting front row. They include Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Diane Kruger, Julianne Moore, Katie Holmes, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathryn Bigelow; while the likes of A.V. Rockwell, Nikyatu Jusu, and Hannah Peterson have competed, going on to screen their work at Sundance, the Toronto International Film Festival, and the BlackStar Film Festival.
In years past, Through Her Lens has kicked off with a luncheon, usually at De Niroâs Locanda Verde in New York, that unfolds like a parade of Chanel-clad film-industry talents. In the three days that follow, participants get one-on-one mentoring sessions and master classes dedicated to the development of short film projects. The program culminates with a lucky three being awarded grant money to help realize their films. This year, there will be no tweedy lunch or face-to-face mentorship sessions, but Chanel and Tribeca Enterprises are committed to continuing the program 2020 style: virtually.
Ahead of this yearâs lineup, we caught up with Emilia Clarke, who will serve as mentors alongside Glenn Close, Niki Caro, Lucy Boynton, and Uzo Aduba. Calling her involvement âan absolute no-brainer,â the former Game of Thrones star rang from London, and her firecracker enthusiasm could be felt through the transatlantic call. Sheâs been at home for much of 2020, which has allowed her the time to develop projects for her own production company and to work with her charity, Same You, dedicated to brain injury recovery. Through Her Lens is just another chance for Clarke to give back. Below, she stresses the value of mentorship, the need to know your references and the glorious benefits of binge-watching cinema.
How did you first hear about Through Her Lens?
I got a call from my rep telling me about Through Her Lens. As soon as I heard about it, I was like, âDamn straight. I am so in!â I did a judging panel for the BFI last year and it was so fulfilling and amazing. I really passionately care about new voices being heard, especially when those voices are female, so this was an absolute no-brainer. Itâs kind of funny because youâre sort of like, well, what can I bring to the table? What experiences can I share that might be beneficial to someone coming into the industry? Because Lord knows I would have loved [a mentor] for myself! I think that when youâre a female in this industry, you do have a slightly singular experience. And I think that itâs becoming increasingly valuable for us women to talk to each other.
What experiences and advice will you share with your mentees?
An understanding of what Iâve learned and what to expect; what you can push back on and what the environment you are being sent into is like. Because everybody starts with, largely speaking, a wide-eyed, optimistic gaze, and I think that the best way to have your stories told and heard is by understanding the environment youâre walking into. And now, as a producer as well, I see a whole other side of things, which is teaching me a lot as an actor and will definitely be valuable to a young filmmaker or a new voice.
You mentioned you wished you had more of a mentor. Could you expand on that?
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TIME – Emilia Clarkeâknown for displaying strength as Daenerys Targaryen and exuding warmth in movies like Last Christmas and Me Before Youâis no stranger to hospitals and healthcare workers. After suffering two brain aneurysms starting in 2011, her road to recovery brought her to a deep appreciation for the care she received during her journey back to healthâand to want to enable others with brain injuries to find similar resources, the actor shared in a TIME100 Talks that aired on Sept. 24.
Clarkeâs own experiences have provided her with what she called an âarmor of sortsâ to face the pandemic. âWhen you personally come very close to dyingâwhich I did twiceâit brings into light a conversation which you have with yourself which goes to the tune of: appreciation for the things you have in your life, thanks for the people who are here,â she said.
SameYou, Clarkeâs brain injury recovery charity, attempts to help serve that purpose. But like many other organizations this year, SameYou has felt the challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
âPeople with brain injuries were leaving hospital early,â she said. âMy heart was bleeding for all the people who werenât able to get what I was able to get.â Experimenting with new virtual ways to connect with brain injury patients has presented its own silver linings, however. âCOVID has paradoxically been quite an incredible moment for us to really assess that properly and see: how are the ways, during a global pandemic, can we reach out and make people not feel alone?â
Clarke also discussed the âcollective griefâ she thinks we are all facing, and the empathy that it might engender. âWhat can come out of this is the knowledge that this stuff we place so much importance on the, the things, the materialistic things, take a backseat,â she said. âWhen you feel bad, when you feel low, when you feel sad, when you feel scaredâI think thereâs a societal setup for you to grab for more to fix it, to kind of cover it. When really what you need is to strip it back and be introspective and reflective where possible. Thatâs the thing thatâs going to last you for the rest of your life.â
While Clarkeâs on-camera work has been on hold, sheâs stayed active reading poetry on her social media and participating in things like a theatrical table read of a play with her friend and colleague Emma Thompson, who also wrote her TIME100 tribute in 2019, with proceeds going to charity. And when it comes to returning to showbiz, Clarkeâwho has been vocal about the issues she faced on the Game of Thrones setâis optimistic about how the industry has changed. âThere are [now] things like intimacy coaches, which is wonderful, and something that was very far away from my experience,â she said.
Lately, sheâs particularly encouraged by movements toward representative storytelling. âWhose stories are we hearing? Who are we hearing? Thatâs vital. Inclusivity of humanityâof everybodyâthereâs not enough representation,â she said. âI believe itâs coming. Thatâs something I care about, and the way that audiences can support that is by watching things ⊠and giving them big box office numbers. Itâs a business.â
Expanding the breadth of stories we see on screen is good for everyone, she added: âThe world will be richer for it.â
Clarkeâs approach right now is earnest hope. âI just keep saying the cheesiest things, but I believe in humanity, I believe in us. Itâs chilling that it takes a global pandemic to make a bunch of us stop and assess and see what we have. But Iâm hopeful that our healthcare workers and our frontline workers are going to be supported forever,â she said. âIâm hopeful that in the wake of Black Lives Matter and everything thatâs happened around that, we will continue to see stories from everyone. Iâm hopeful that when weâre not fighting a virus that doesnât care where you come from or how much money you have, weâll still say, âOh, weâre on the same side!’â
Emilia Clarke interview: the Game of Thrones star on leaving Westeros behind to tackle the West End
Clarke, who now stars in Chekhovâs The Seagull, tells Louis Wise that the HBO fantasy series made her feel like a âsmall cog in a big machineâ





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MAGAZINES > 2020 > 2020 The Sunday Times Culture Magazine – March 15
The Times: Emilia Clarke says she views herself primarily as a stage actress, which is a little weird when you consider that she has only appeared in one play professionally before, and it was an absolute turkey. Or, as the 33-year-old star of Game of Thrones says, in her jolly British way, it was âterrible, awful, awful! Bad! That was a bad show!â The piece was Breakfast at Tiffanyâs on Broadway in 2013, and itâs safe to say Clarkeâs Holly Golightly did not enchant. âIâll never forget, someone said to me after press night the only thing they liked was the cat.â
If Clarke relays this with surprising good humour, this is part temperament, part experience. For one thing, in person she is relentlessly chipper and pukka. Whereas on HBOâs mega-fantasy series Game of Thrones, she grew in stature as Daenerys Targaryen, a still, dignified stateswoman (until that end), in real life she is a goofy motormouth chatterbox, always eager to catch the joke at her expense. And she is no stranger to what we shall politely call âthe mixed reviewâ. She has known some drubbings, whether for that Broadway show, or films such as Last Christmas or Terminator Genisys, or indeed the final series of GoT, which â euphemism alert! â didnât quite turn out the way everybody wanted.
Luckily she never reads reviews. âBecause if itâs really, really good, someone will tell you. And if itâs really, really bad â some f***** will tell you.â
We are meeting today, though, at a rehearsal space in south London, because she is chucking herself back into the fray. For only her second stage appearance, Clarke is going straight into the West End, in Chekhovâs The Seagull, and taking on the prestigious role of Nina. If she is nervous, sheâs handling it in the usual way, which is to say with huge blasts of good cheer.
Two clichĂ©s about meeting starsis that they are a) smaller than you thought, but b) their features are stronger than expected. Both are true of Clarke. She is tiny, proper Kylie-tiny, nicely decked out in a gauzy beige-cream knit, some fashionably frayed jeans and pointy, well-worn white cowboy boots. Yet her eyes and grin look extra big: if she stays still, sheâs a dainty doll, but as soon as she moves itâs Looney Tunes. To be clear, she never stays still.
This energy feels helpful, as we have a lot to pack in. After all, Clarkeâs past decade has been particularly wild. Not only did she rocket suddenly to fame in GoT (until then, her only screen credit was an episode of Doctors), she also lost her father to cancer in 2016 and, as she revealed in 2019, had suffered a sequence of brain haemorrhages in her early twenties, just as the madness of GoT was kicking off.

Even the Mother of Dragons gets sick. A slightly congested Emilia Clarke mentions sheâs getting over the flu as we talk on the phone days after the Academy Awards. Apparently, going to the Oscars and hitting up Beyonceâs private after party didnât help with her recovery. (âI basically cried at her,â she gushes over the experience.) But whatâs one night of feeling ill on the red carpet when youâve spent months filming battle scenes in wintery Northern Ireland in the most grueling conditions? If Khaleesi could make it to Winterfell alive, then Clarke could survive the climax of awards season with the flu.
Throughout Clarkeâs nearly decade-long tenure as queen Daenerys Targaryen on Game of Thrones, weâve seen her walk through fire unburnt, devour a horse heart, and fly on the back of dragons. But in the fantasy juggernautâs eighth and final season, which premieres April 14, Dany will find herself in completely new territory: at Winterfell with the Starks, on the brink of a war against the undead.
âShe starts feeling pretty cocksure and confident, and then stuff happens,â Clarke tells BAZAAR.com of Danyâs arrival North and her first encounter with Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner), which HBO teased in early promos.
Clarkeâs casting as the platinum-haired heir to the Iron Throne was first announced in 2010. She’s grown a lot since then; Season 1 Emilia and Season 8 Emilia are âtwo incredibly different women,â Clarke says.
As she moves on from the Thrones world, she already has other projects lined up, like the holiday rom-com Last Christmas (co-written by Emma Thompson) opposite Henry Golding. She previously hit the big screen in 2018âs Solo: A Star Wars Story, 2016âs Me Before You, and 2014âs Terminator Genisys. Clarke also landed a covetable role in the beauty sphere, as the face of Dolce & Gabbanaâs The Only One fragrance, available now. In the ads, she’s a charming Italian chanteuse who breaks into song over dinner in Romeâa far cry from Khaleesi.
But nothing can compare to her experience on GoT, for better or worse. âGame of Thrones is probably the hardest shooting I’ll do, because it is so physical and you’re in a corset!â she emphasizes. âYou’ve got the physical places of where you are, the weather is so extreme, and the hours are really long and there’s so much tension in each character towards the end. There’s so much tension in the room, and you’re concentrating so hard. It’s strenuous.â
After a long day on set, Clarkeâs self-care routine ends with the ultimate release: âTaking off your goddamn bra and getting into your pajamas.â Sheâs also religious about removing her makeup (âYou’ve put a lot on by the end of the dayâ), then cleansing and moisturizing every night. And once sheâs in her PJs with a hot water bottle, itâs over for yâall.
Clarkeâs journey on Game of Thrones culminated in a similar conclusion. âI think ending it was just the mother of all releases,â she says over the phone. âIt was just the metaphorical undoing of the bra, except it’s like a 10-year experience.â
Here, Clarke tells BAZAAR.com about repping Dolce & Gabbanaâs new scent, saying goodbye to Khaleesi, and promoting gender equality.
Just when all my childhood dreams seemed to have come true, I nearly lost my mind and then my life. Iâve never told this story publicly, but now itâs time.
It was the beginning of 2011. I had just finished filming the first season of âGame of Thrones,â a new HBO series based on George R. R. Martinâs âA Song of Ice and Fireâ novels. With almost no professional experience behind me, Iâd been given the role of Daenerys Targaryen, also known as Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Lady of Dragonstone, Breaker of Chains, Mother of Dragons. As a young princess, Daenerys is sold in marriage to a musclebound Dothraki warlord named Khal Drogo. Itâs a long storyâeight seasons longâbut suffice to say that she grows in stature and in strength. She becomes a figure of power and self-possession. Before long, young girls would dress in platinum wigs and flowing robes to be Daenerys Targaryen for Halloween.
The showâs creators, David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, have said that my character is a blend of Napoleon, Joan of Arc, and Lawrence of Arabia. And yet, in the weeks after we finished shooting the first season, despite all the looming excitement of a publicity campaign and the series premiĂšre, I hardly felt like a conquering spirit. I was terrified. Terrified of the attention, terrified of a business I barely understood, terrified of trying to make good on the faith that the creators of âThronesâ had put in me. I felt, in every way, exposed. In the very first episode, I appeared naked, and, from that first press junket onward, I always got the same question: some variation of âYou play such a strong woman, and yet you take off your clothes. Why?â In my head, Iâd respond, âHow many men do I need to kill to prove myself?â
To relieve the stress, I worked out with a trainer. I was a television actor now, after all, and that is what television actors do. We work out. On the morning of February 11, 2011, I was getting dressed in the locker room of a gym in Crouch End, North London, when I started to feel a bad headache coming on. I was so fatigued that I could barely put on my sneakers. When I started my workout, I had to force myself through the first few exercises.

“That lady” is Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, rightful heir to the Iron Throne, rightful Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, and Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, among other titles. She commands an air force of dragons, walks through fire, and is a serious contender to win the “Game of Thrones.”
The final season of the series, which begins next week on HBO, is the biggest TV show on Earth. It’s famous for killing off its lead characters, but (so far) Clarke’s has survived.
Correspondent Tracy Smith said, “Even though you are one of the obviously most powerful characters in the show, I don’t think audiences would be surprised if they killed you?”
“Well, this is the incredible writing, the incredible storytelling on the show,” Clarke said. “And in that way that life can be shocking and frightening and confusing, this show doesn’t shy away from that for the sake of storytelling. It embraces that.”
“So, without giving anything away, when you read that final script, what happens to Daenerys, what was your reaction?”
“It’s sort of almost impossible to answer that question.”
“Without giving something away?”
“Uh-huh. I have so much to say about that!”
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VANITY FAIR – It may be another year before Daenerys Targaryen appears on HBO, but Emilia Clarke has wrapped up shooting for the final season of Game of Thrones and is prepared for the big screen.
On a rainy April afternoon, Emilia Clarke enters the bright, airy Egyptian galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art the way so many movie-lovers before her have: quoting Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally. Adopting the unsourceable accent Crystal uses opposite Meg Ryan in a famously improvised scene filmed in this very room, Clarke starts stuttering, âPah-pah-paprikash.â Our amused if bewildered guide, too young to get the reference, adds the 1989 rom-com to her list of movie recommendations from Clarke, who has already gushed about the 2017 religious drama Novitiate. Chuckling over this unlikely double feature, Clarke assures her, âYou have two incredible movies coming your way.â
One reference the guide does get: Game of Thrones, the HBO juggernaut which stars Clarke as its most unstoppable heroine, Daenerys Targaryen. In fact, the very tour weâre taking, put together by a company called Museum Hack, is based on the series, and offers a fan-friendly survey of the sometimes inscrutable displays of the Met. You donât have to be an art historian (our guide is an aspiring actress) to understand what Greek fire, Damascus blades, heraldry, mutilated men, samurai kamon, the dragon-born St. Margaret of Antioch, and an early female pharaoh have to do with wildfire, Valyrian steel, house words, and Clarkeâs world-famous alter ego.




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