HBO’s fantasy flagship Game of Thrones may have already concluded its eighth and final season, but the star-studded series’ reputation for (gratuitous?) nudity and sex scenes continues to be a point of discussion, with its cast and crew frequently finding themselves being asked about it.
In particular, Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen) has had to address the topic on numerous occasions and believes that folks shouldn’t make such a big deal out of the show’s nude scenes. “People f–k for pleasure, it’s part of life,” she said to the press last year.
Clearly, the actress doesn’t have a problem with appearing in her birthday suit on screen, but in a new interview, Clarke’s revealed that some of the show’s staffers would pressure her early on to do more nudity just to please the viewers at home.
“I’ve had fights on set before where I’m like, ‘No, the sheet stays up,’ and they’re like, ‘You don’t wanna disappoint your Game of Thrones fans’. And I’m like, ‘f–k you.'”
Without a doubt, one of the Dragon Queen’s most iconic nude scenes in Game of Thrones came in season 6, when she burns all of the Khals that have captured her, before emerging from the flames unscathed. And though this particular moment received a bit of fan backlash, Clarke’s still proud of the sequence, saying:
“I was like, I’m owning this. This is mine, they’ve asked me to do it, and do you know what? I’m f****** game.”
With Thrones now over, it remains to be seen if the actress will continue taking roles that require nudity, but it’s nice to hear that in later seasons of the show she was able to “own” these moments and also had the courage to stand up to those who pressured her early on to do something she might’ve been uncomfortable with at the time. And even despite how the last run of the hit series turned out, Game of Thrones will still go down as one of television’s greatest achievements, with Clarke’s performance in particular always being a highlight of each season.