Emilia Clarke rose to stardom as Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones. The strong portrayal of the Dragon mother who bent the whole of Westeros with her resilience before succumbing to “Targaryen madness” earned the British actress four Emmy awards nominations.
Based on George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, GoT established itself as one of the most talked about shows of the last decade. On the big screen, another novel-inspired series, Fifty Shades trilogy, dominated headlines during the same period. Interestingly, Clarke also had the opportunity to lead this project.
Emilia Clarke Gave an Interesting Reason Behind Her Decision to Reject Fifty Shades of Grey
Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan joined hands for Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) to portray college student Anastasia Steele and enigmatic billionaire Christian Grey and left the audience feeling both excited and intrigued at the same time with their compelling performances.
The erotic drama based on E. L. James’ 2011 novel of the same name gained so much popularity that the producers churned out two more installments in 2017 and 2018. The big reason behind the erotic drama’s success was the way Johnson and Dornan combined to bring the steamy sadomasochistic affair to the fore.
Having said that, Sam Taylor-Johnson’s first choice for the role of Ana was not Johnson. Instead, she wanted to work with Emilia Clarke. However, the Game of Thrones star turned down the opportunity due to a huge amount of n-dity in the film. Speaking to Marie Claire (via Entertainment Weekly) in 2015, Clarke said:
“I really wanted to work with [Fifty Shades director] Sam Taylor-Johnson because she’s f*cking amazing. But there is a huge amount of n-dity in the film.”
At first, the British actor’s reasoning does seem a bit hypocritical as she featured in several n-de scenes as Daenerys. At the same time, it’s understandable that by being part of another similar project in terms of explicit scenes, Clarke didn’t want to risk getting pigeonholed for life.
Emilia Clarke Established Herself as an Action Star With Terminator Genisys
Instead during the same period, Clarke accepted to be part of another iconic franchise, The Terminator. She assumed the role of young Sarah Connor in Terminator Genisys (2015).
While we don’t have any official word, considering both Fifty Shades of Grey and Terminator Genisys were released in the first half of 2015, it won’t be far-fetched to assume the 37-year-old wouldn’t have managed to do both projects due to scheduling conflicts as well as her commitment to the then-ongoing HBO series.
Clarke earned plenty of recognition for brilliantly following in the footsteps of Linda Hamilton and grew herself as an action star instead. After Daenerys and Sarah, she showed her bold side in Marvel’s Secret Invasion as G’iah.
