Watch: ‘Game of Thrones’ Queen Emilia Clarke Can’t Ride Horses But Loves Fruit

With Season 5 of HBO’s hit series “Game of Thrones” less than a month away, the show’s stars are hitting the press rounds. Emilia Clarke, who plays “The Mother of Dragons” Daenerys Targaryen, sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to talk “Thrones,” auditions and her upcoming role in “Terminator: Genisys” playing (in her words) “Sarah fucking Connor.” Here are a few highlights, with the full video below. 

Clarke knew “Game of Thrones” was big time because of the excellent produce.

When Clarke walked into her first audition for the series, “There was a huge, incredible plateau of fruit,” she told THR.” I was like, ‘Wow, I’ve arrived. This is a serious audition.'”

She’s glad she didn’t take that “Fifty Shades of Grey” role. 

Clarke was approached to play the role that eventually went to Dakota Johnson in “Fifty Shades of Grey” — she was intrigued enough to have two meetings with director Sam Taylor-Johnson, but as she told THR, she has “no regrets.”

“I’d done nudity before and was concerned with being labeled for doing it again,” Clarke explained, noting that during a quick nude scene when she was on Broadway in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” audience members would pull out their cell phones to record.

Don’t put her in charge of a moving object.

In THR’s video below, Clarke recalled the terrible time she had trying to drive a Brinks truck for “Terminator: Genisys,” but as it turns out, she’s had problems with horses as well. “Season 1, day one [of ‘Games of Thrones’] I was on a horse and had to maneuver said horse through a field with some sort of trees and then fell off the horse… was kind of clinging on for dear life. I turned around, saw all of the crew looking at me and then just burst into tears.”

Despite being on the same show, Clarke and Lena Headey didn’t discuss their shared role.

Headey played Sarah Connor on the FOX series “The Sarah Connor Chronicles,” but Clarke neglected to ask for her advice. “I wish I had consulted with previous Sarah Connors before we started shooting. But the new movie that we’re making — it’s quite a departure for Sarah Connor as a character. The backstory is so incredibly different. In that sense I really got to make it my own and just live with the incredible memory of the Sarah Connors that have been before.”

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