Actress and advocate Emilia Clarke has brutally set the record straight on rumours regarding the salaries of the Game of Thrones cast.
It’s without a doubt that throughout the 2010s, Game of Thrones had quite the gorilla grip chokehold on pop culture.
X (then Twitter) feeds were on fire every time an episode was dropped, memes were born, Pedro Pascal was introduced to us AND, most importantly, everyone — including myself — had the biggest crush on Emilia Clarke, who played the iconic Mother of Dragons, Daenerys Targaryen.
With such popularity, it’s been speculated that the cast made quite the buck, with some rumours claiming they made USD$300,000 (approx. AUD $417246.17) per episode.
Emilia Clarke addresses Game of Thrones salary claim
In an interview with Variety, Clarke shut down the USD$300,000 per episode claim, admitting the cast “didn’t earn that much”.
“Can you imagine? I’d have been driving a couple of Porsches!” she shared.
Clarke did not specify how much she did make. However, she did confirm it gave her financial security and helped her pay off her parents’ mortgage.
In 2018, Clarke confirmed she received the same pay as her male co-stars during production of the legendary show.
“It was my first job and I was not discriminated against because I was a woman, in my paycheque,” she said in a 2018 interview at Cannes Film Festival.
In a 2022 interview with GQ, Succession star Brian Cox revealed he turned down the role of Robert Baratheon in Game of Thrones over the pay.
“Well, Game of Thrones went on to be a huge success and everybody involved earned an absolute fortune, of course. But when it was originally offered the money was not all that great, shall we say,” Cox said when he was asked why he passed on the role.
Elsewhere in Clarke’s interview, the actress confirmed she didn’t have any “creative input” in Game of Thrones or the potrayal of Daenerys, even though her character is one of the most memorable figures in pop cultrue history.
“Aside from what I brought as an actor, I didn’t have any creative input, nor did I want any,” the Me Before You star said.
“I was given the seasons, and I, to the best of my ability, empathised and understood and tracked every choice she made so it felt like mine,” she continued.
“I felt like that was what my job was.”
Clarke also mentioned that she felt like she’d “cheated death” following two traumatic brain aneurysms which took place while she filmed Game of Thrones.
“For a number of years, I felt that I had cheated death, and it was coming to get me,” she said.
“I also thought it ruined my ability to act — which some people might agree with!” she joked.
