Emilia Clarke covers the latest issue of Vanity Fair, and the changes with VF’s banner and cover fonts are going to take some getting used to, correct? Yikes! Emilia is promoting Solo: A Star Wars Story, plus she’s doing some advanced teaser promotion for the final episodes of Game of Thrones. Obviously, I went into this thinking I would find the GoT stuff more interesting, but she honestly doesn’t reveal much of anything there. But she does say some really interesting stuff about all of the production drama on Solo, what with the original directors being fired mid-stream and Ron Howard being pulled in quickly. You can read the full Vanity Fair profile here. Some highlights:
She’s already shot Daenerys’s final scenes: “It f–ked me up. Knowing that is going to be a lasting flavor in someone’s mouth of what Daenerys is . . .”
The loneliness of being a working actor: “This job can be so alienating. You’re in a trailer by yourself. You’re in a car by yourself. You’re in a plane. You’re in a plane. You’re in a plane. That’s what success looks like if you’re an actor. Success looks like being alone.”
She’s sworn off dating actors, and doesn’t want her love life to be in the news: “The guys that I’ve met in my life that are d-cks, I voluntarily walk the f–k away from them. That’s just bad taste. People shouldn’t know about those choices.”
Her squad is full of real girls: “I ain’t got me no celebrity friends. My squad? They don’t let me get away with anything. There’s not a lot of actors I relate to.”
Her role of Qi’ra in Solo: “We’re going to hit you with a character that could very easily well be a dude, because you question her motives. That’s really f–king exciting in the Star Wars universe, because that has never happened.”
She had problems with the original directors: “I’m not gonna lie. I struggled with Qi’ra quite a lot. I was like: ‘Y’all need to stop telling me that she’s “film noir,” because that ain’t a note.’ ” Frustrated by the lack of direction, she turned to Solo’s father-and-son screenwriters, Lawrence and Jon Kasdan, for support.
She says Ron Howard saved the movie: “All hail to [Lucasfilm president] Kathy [Kennedy] for hiring Ron…. When it comes to that amount of money, you’re almost waiting for [a huge disaster] to happen. Money f–ks us all up, doesn’t it? There’s so much pressure. Han Solo is a really beloved character. This is a really important movie for the franchise as a whole. It’s a sh-t ton of money. A sh-t ton of people. A sh-t ton of expectations.”
She does worry about bad reviews: “I hope we did it good, then, because people have all this gossip. I don’t want people to go, ‘That’s the bit where it all went wrong. That’s the bit, I know it.’ I just really hope that people have a good time, that it’s good, and, you know, selfishly, that I’m not sh-tt and that people don’t write reviews going, ‘Oh my God, that’s, like, the worst acting I’ve ever seen in my life. Wow. How did they give her the part?’ ”
As of 2014, she’s paid the same as Kit Harington, Lena Headey, Peter Dinklage and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: They reportedly each landed $300,000 per episode, a dazzling figure that skyrocketed to half a million per episode for the final two seasons. “I get f–king paid the same as my guy friends. We made sure of that.”
I forgot to mention how much she curses in this interviews. She curses a lot, and very little of it sounds natural. Most of it sounds like a posh girl trying to sound “tough” and “street.” I don’t know, but after I read the whole piece, I came away thinking that she seems very “affected.” Her aim is to sound “real” and like she’s just a normal person who just happens to be part of two of the most famous franchises in history. Oh, and I do think her concern about bad reviews is justified: I love her as Dany, but at times I agree with the criticism that she’s not really all that and a bag of chips as an actress. On the plus side, the Star Wars movies aren’t known for being showcases for actors, so we’ll see.
Photos courtesy of Vanity Fair.
She should never do another interview. She sounds terrible. Bad grammar, cussing, ain’t. She realizes this is going to be published and speaks like That? Why?! “I hope we did it good” my God!
ITA She should refrain from opening her mouth period, unless reading what others have written for her. She sounds unintelligent, and trashy!
Agree. She sounds idiotic.
She sounds like she’s trying too hard to be a cool, tough punk. I swear too, but never to that extreme.
“Ain’t ” ain’t in the dictionary, Emilia
It reminded me a bit of Bella Hadid’s interview with Complex, it sounded about as natural. Look up “Bella Hadid Goes Sneaker Shopping With Complex” on YouTube if you haven’t seen it.
She sounds completely insufferable. Maybe other actors don’t want to be friends with her because they’ve had the misfortune of actually meeting her in person. I hope her “real” friends don’t let her get away with this interview.
Well that terrible grammar is certainly very affected!
Not sure about the swearing as posh Brits swear a lot.
I’ve seen her in interviews and she seems quite ‘normal’. This VF piece is bizarre and doesn’t sound like her.
and what does this mean?
‘It f–ked me up. Knowing that is going to be a lasting flavor in someone’s mouth of what Daenerys is’
??????
And agree she is a very one-dimensional actress. Not helped by the fact that Daenerys is a very one-dimensional character.
I love the books and loved Daenerys in the first 3 books but her storyline and character have lost purpose and all she seems to do is run around telling people she has to be Queen.
I still watch the show but the last season was such a drop in quality. the Daenerys/Jon Snow hookup was out of character and out of the blue. Much like 24 in later seasons time and space are now utterly alien concepts and the whole thing seems very fanfiction-y.
The 2 pretty goodies paired up against the nasty evil queen and the meandering ice zombies.
I think Martin’s original plan was probably good Targaryen (Jon Snow) against unhinged Targaryen (Dany) as a remake of the past Targ civil wars. Maybe that’s what she means with her bizarre quote, that Dany si going to end up being the ultimate villain.
Quite frankly those Targaryens were all shitty leaders.
bring back the independent 7 kingdoms I say!
On the contrary, the Targaryen blood line is full of incestious coupling as a way to keep their blood line “pure”.
So Jon and Dany’s hookup was definitely in line with their characters and the history of their family tree.
No because Jon has no idea he’s a Targ and he promised his people he wouldn’t bend the knee.
We know honour is very important to him. Throughout the show people have called him on being too much like Ned and yet once Daenerys has finally given up on asking him to bend the knee he spontaneously does it knowing it’s going to cause chaos and possible mutiny in the North?
Totally out of character for him.
“and what does this mean?
‘It f–ked me up. Knowing that is going to be a lasting flavor in someone’s mouth of what Daenerys is’
??????”
Probaly doing something evil. She could also be trolling to get people on a wrong trail like thinking that Daenerys will go down the same path as her father.
Or you know the good old incest with Jon.
Cersei has already gone the way of the Targaryen King. She did what Jamie Killed him to stop. Which is why I believe Jamie will be the one to kill her.
As for Dany, I adore her in that role. I hope she ends up well & no more dragon deaths.
There is going to be a Targ battle…just not in the show.
Time for democracy in Westeros! Martin has always presented autocrats harshly and favored characters who were critical of the established order, so I’m hoping he has a surprise in store for us. Wishful thinking, I know, but a year and a half of Trump has turned me against rule by dragon.
Totally agree with you Maum —the biggest mistake made after Robert’s Rebellion was not going back to Seven Kingdoms. They were independent for thousands of years —-the terrorist Targs with their fire-breathing weapons of mass destruction only took them over three hundred years earlier.
And what exactly does Westeros have to show for those 300 years of Dragon rule? How many civil wars? How many shitty, mad, rulers?
I hate the dragons. They’re weapons of mass destruction and they eat children. Targs are fear rulers- the worse kind.
The more the story progresses the obvious it becomes that those kingdoms have nothing in common and should not be united.
Even terrible king Robert realised that the North was tough to ruke which is why he made Ned Warden- he needed a Stark in Winterfell.
Things fell apart when he decided to appoint Ned as Hand. Ned should have been stronger and stuck to his guns.
Is she posh? Her dad was from Wolverhampton according to wiki, that “ain’t” posh.
She grew up in Oxford, attending two exclusive fee paying schools which is not the norm in the UK. She’s posh even if her parents aren’t (although I do believe that they are from info given in other interviews). Being born somewhere “not posh” has no bearing on whether you’re posh or not. I mean the royal babies were born in inner city London and are not suffering from the kind of disadvantages that other inner city kids and their families suffer, for example.
Everything about her speech says that the ‘I ain’t got no’ line was totally tongue in cheek and for laughs. Americans don’t entirely understand the connection with what you’d call accent and the grammar that comes with it with Brits.
I personally wonder if VF got her to drink a bit more than …wanted? The IG clips she did had we wondering if she wasn’t a bit tipsy…. so…
😂 I needed that laugh. I don’t watch Game of Thrones so I’ve never seen or read her interviews. Clicked solely for the quote. I thought it was a typo. lol, it is not.
I don’t care about her horrible acting, for some reason I really like her and she seems like a really sweet person… And I loved her interviews with Paul Bettany
I can’t stand actors complaining how hard the success of being a working actor is. You are in the business of lucky few, with majority struggling to get a job, and you land a role on one of the most popular shows ever and stard feeling like a wronged one. Seriously, go away. I am sure there will be a line of hunderends to take your place.
There are a lot of things that come unbidden with that profession. Fame doesn’t mean it’s easy. It makes everything harder.
This. Other people are lonely too. Emilia just doesnt see them in first class.
And they chose it as their job. If they find it so miserable and they’re so lonely, then they should quit and do something else
She now also has the luxury of doing a job that pays terribly without worrying about rent and her future.
So true! There’s nothing to say she can’t have a second career that allows her to stay local and never miss a clam bake with the-non-actor fam.
She seems nice, but she’s an OK actress at best….at very best. Medium to the extreme.
She might need to get away from trying to do blockbusters for awhile. That little romance movie she did was a strong hit, but Terminator was a fail and now Solo’s box office is a disaster. This will more likely than not be the first live action Star Wars to lose money theatrically. What a mess.
‘Y’all need to stop telling me that she’s “film noir,” because that ain’t a note.’
So well put. It’s a disaster that most film directors now develop from commercial shoots and music videos, rather than theatre and TV. It’s all about a stylish “cool” surface rather than the human substance. That’s why so many new movies have the staying power of a car commercial and the classics continue to resonate.
Really to me that note means be more of a femme fatale.If I had gotten that note I would have study film noir films from the 40’s and 50’s and used that as a guide to shape my characters mode of operation. But it is interesting was she the one who “tattled” on Lord and Miller, because I remember some of the reports said that it was Alden who went to Lucas Film heads with concerns but it seems maybe it was Emilia.
I doubt it was any one person who got them fired.
She does not have the kind of power to fire a director.
+1 on that being a legitimate note. Easy enough to do a little research on film noir and femme fatales, sheesh. It certainly would have made for a more interesting performance than what she came up with!
I saw Solo, she can’t act but neither could the guy who played Han. However, Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson and Donald Glover saved that movie from being a total sh*t show. I want a Lando spin off.
Alden can act watch him in Hail!Ceasar. I just think this whole movie was just doomed from the start.
Would that it were a Lando movie. (He was great in Hail Caesar, though).
I thought he was good, especially after reading about all the coaching actor thing. Is he Harrison Ford? Of course not, who is?
But he pulls it out, he becomes Han.
Seriously, for all the doomstories, I was pleasantly surprised. I was entertained, I laughed.
I disagree. Thandie Newton’s part is really small so not sure how you came up with she is part of the reason it isn’t a sh(*(t show. Woody Harrelson is playing Woody Harrelson without the weed or maybe just a bit of weed. Donald Glover is good, but he hardly steals the movie. I thought the movie was okay, and both Emilia and Aron were pretty good. The movie isn’t great though, because the same with all of the rehash Star Wars stories it is just rehashed vignettes of the first three movies (Episode 4, 5, 6 if you are going chronologically.) At least it isnot like Force Awakens which was a total rehash of A New Hope, or The Last Jedi- which was a bad adaptation of Empire Strikes Back (the best picture of all of them). I know people really like the Force Awakens but aside from better special effects it was the first Star Wars and that was just better, and more original.
What I hoped and like about this movie was like Rogue One, which was a really good side piece, iIt ends only slightly a bit before Harrison Ford’s Han Solo comes in play in a New Hope. I think it would have been better if they ended it right before Han met Obi Wan and Luke at Tattoine. Then you know it would be a side piece without a sequel, like Rogue One. This was written with just enough time to write another or it is open for another. Which is just bad.
Seriously, how many Star Wars can you make before you oversaturate the market. I think they have now. I was not thrilled with Force Awakens, although if I wasn’t a true New Hope fan who saw the movie dozens of time in theatre as a kid I probably would have liked it. Just seemed like a ripoff to me. I didn’t even see Last Jedi till it was On Demand, and that one was okay too, but more of a bad rehash. I went with friends to a theatre that served drinks and food for Solo. I didn’t drink, but wings made it better. My friends who drank liked it more. Just I think they have lost ideas on how to make these original, and they all have potential for side stories every six months. Just too much.
A lot of posh Brit actors swear copiously in interviews and, generally speaking, the posher they are the more they swear or use phrases like she did above “I ain’t got me no celebrity friends” and similar. A lot of not posh Brit actors don’t swear at all, or at the very least don’t swear as much, in interviews and I always find the contrast interesting.
Also, that cover is weird. How difficult can it be to photograph a beautiful woman? Maybe it has something to do with the excessive airbrushing going on: she has pronounced lines in real life and she’s mentioned in interviews that she doesn’t give a damn about them and refuses to get them altered or botoxed away and yet in every single cover the magazine/photoshoppers smooth them out so her skin has the eerie texture of glass. And the perverse thing is that it doesn’t make the photos better – if anything it makes them look worse in an uncanny valley kind of way.
Thank you for bringing up to cover, it’s terrible. She looks uncomfortable and unnatural. Also that blouse looks like one my 84 year old granny owns. She’s a thirty-something actress trying for an ongoing high profile career. This photo looks like an accountant’s profile on their website.
+1, her face looks weird, somehow out of proportion. And she is usually stunning which IMO is her major asset. A good actress she ain’t.
I think it’s a long-running trend that’s here to stay: making you do a double take so you actually remember the magazine, by making familiar faces look a little off kilter.
She’s so boring I almost fell asleep.
Do you think the obvious that she can’t act? Emilia Clark is not really a good Actress let’s just leave it at that.
I know people criticize her acting, but I find her so gorgeous when she is playing Dany. Like, stunning. Mesmerizing. But when she is being “herself”, she looks like a cute girl, but nothing special. That must mean she is a good actress, right?
IKR! I think she’s mesmerizingly gorgeous too! And while she can be somewhat wooden I think her character in GOT’s relentless pursuit of power leaves her w/little else to project.
I’m also impressed when she speaks Targarian ( or whatever the dialect?)
as its an alien language that to me seems difficult to master…
I think it means Game of Thrones has an excellent hair, makeup, and costume department.
SAME! What’s the magic of this character, I don’t know. I used to think it was the hair color, then she turned blonde and I was like… still waiting for Danny to knock me off.
I don’t thank no her acting is as bad as people say. Part of acting for the Dany character was speaking in different languages that can’t be easy and I thought she did it well.
The aints and y’alls are SUPER grating. If it was natural, then fine. But as an affectation, it’s idiotic.
And that cover is awful.
Specially as she’s so middle class British and NO-ONE talk this way here.
In past interviews she’s more bumbling Kate Winslet than whatever affectation she’s trying to pull off here.
It might have worked in a spoken interview if she was fooling around but in print and in VF it’s just bizarre.
It seems natural to me and I can hear her voice while reading. Her and Adele talk very similarly and they both swear a lot.
Right? I’ve heard her speak, actually. Like, in a casual setting. It’s how she speaks, and I guess it doesn’t come across well in writing but in real life it just comes naturally to her. It’s not ‘put on’, she’s always talked like this. I don’t love her as an actress but I find her sweet, sharp, hilarious, if a bit scatterbrained in interviews, so I actually hope she’s got some longevity.
By the way has anybody noticed that her acting in GoT suddenly gets so much better whenever she has to speak high valyrian? Normal scenes, she’s a bit dead-eyed and stiff, but for some reason whatever walls Emilia has just fall away when she has to speak in a ‘foreign’ language. It’s weird. And cool.
Loved Solo! She nailed Qi’ra. I’m giving her a pass on this interview.
Swearing is like salt in your food; in the right amount it’s good; if you put too much, it’s unbearable.
Everything I have hear about Daenerys upcoming, and everything in season 7 tells me that she is going to die, and she will VERY MUCH deserve it.
Also, I always get the feeling that Emilia Clarke hasn’t actually seen a lot of movies. “Female with mysterious motives” is one of the most classic archetypes of all time. Ever.
I just finished the first two books, and right now I’m pulling for Dany on the iron throne.
Read the rest of the books. Book Dany is a very interesting, sympathetic and dynamic character, but that girl should steer clear of any throne, including the Iron Throne, and find herself a new house with a red door. She’s no ruler, she’s a young conqueror, a benevolent tyrant, and what Daenerys needs is just… normalcy. Not thrones and crowns and fire and blood.
She has two little girls tortured in book 5. To implicate their parents. The parents give fake information to get the torture to stop. a Dance with Dragons, Daenerys II. I won’t spoiler the end of the book except to say that it does not end in a way that speaks well of her character or her approach to ruling. The last book is called A Dream of Spring, and Dragons plant no trees.
Dany of the show has none of the things that make her sympathetic. …And the Iron Throne needs to be destroyed.
She’s very sympathetic until she turns entitled and a terrible ruler.
It’s interesting that she is loved by so many people. My theory is that if she were a man the fan reaction would be very different.
@Maum oh, definitely. See: Stannis.
I talked to Joe Dempsie (Gendry) at a Con yesterday, and he said this, “Power has done some very messed up things to her.”
The creators made a point of comparing her character to Sansa, saying Sansa has compassion and mercy when executing even a person who has sold her to a sadistic rapist, whereas Dany “has no compassion or mercy.” If you rewatch the kingsroad battle she’s basically orgasmic out of melting farmboys’ Faces off.
Not to mention she specifically dracarysed all the Lannisters’ food supply.
After complaining she had no food to feed her army.
Meanwhile Sansa (the ‘boring’ one who has no armies or dragons and isn’t an assassin) has been storing food in Winterfell. Food that her bent knee cousin will no doubt give to Fabulous Queen Danaerys. Mmmmm….
There are so many gigantic morons who claim Sansa, who immediately offered up her own title to her brother, is the power hungry one obsessed with titles while Daenerys of the billion stupid titles is a hero who will “righteously” kill Sansa for the crime of… feeding people? .. occasionally arguing with their male fave?
I always liked Sansa in the books. She was a spoilt bratty teenager who found herself abandoned in a viper’s nest and kept her wits, lost hdr naivete and grew quiet strength (and pride in her family) and made it!
Her book story is very different than the show but she is a survivor.
“Also, I always get the feeling that Emilia Clarke hasn’t actually seen a lot of movies. “Female with mysterious motives” is one of the most classic archetypes of all time. Ever. ”
She didn’t say it had never happened in the history of all movies, ever. She said it specifically about the Star Wars films.
‘Her role of Qi’ra in Solo: “We’re going to hit you with a character that could very easily well be a dude, because you question her motives. That’s really f–king exciting *** in the Star Wars universe, because that has never happened. *** ” ‘
And she kind of has a point.
… kind of? Except that there aren’t a lot of male characters like that, either. Also, you could argue that Laura Dern’s motives were questionable in TLJ.
Posh people in England swear as much as working class people. Swearing in Britain is classless.
She bores me. Don’t bore me.
Also, who speaks like this: ” I get paid the same as my guy friends. We fucking made sure of that.” What’s this, Saturday night drinking with the girls? Exhausting.
I’m surprised no one has commented on what she was actually saying – there’s gender parity in the Game of Thrones payroll!
Also, isn’t Emilia BFF’s with Rose Leslie
But she doesn’t sound like that in interviews. Not sure what was going on here.
It’s the combination of bad grammar and swearing that do her in. I swear, most everyone in my orbit swears, especially the educated. My doctor swears lol. Emilia was raised in Berkshire. She graduated. She’s relatively learned, so if I were her, that ‘ain’t got no’ tripe is nothing but proof of plan. Just stick to swearing if it’s normal vernacular, and for heaven’s sake, speak like you have a clue and have learned a thing or two.
I thought she was great in Solo. Rather enjoyed it. People are super critical. And it’s not like she’s saying her life if a sob story compared to anyone else’s. It’s the life she knows and to her, it’s lonely.
She is not complaining, though.
I have never enjoyed her acting, but when I saw her at Graham Norton’s show, I thought she looked very relatable and sweet. But in this interview she sounds terrible, from a lot of perspectives.
just a kid trying to negotiate her identity. lay a little lighter, people.