For years, Game of Thronesfans have believed the show’s biggest stars were collecting eye-watering paychecks. Now, Emilia Clarke is setting the record straight – and doing it with a laugh.
The actress, who became a global star as Daenerys Targaryen, has pushed back on long-running reports that the main cast earned $300,000 per episode during HBO’s fantasy phenomenon.
“We didn’t earn that much,” Clarke said in a new interview.
And if anyone still has doubts, she offered a pretty convincing clue.
“Can you imagine? I’d have been driving a couple of Porsches,” she joked.
While Clarke stopped short of revealing her actual salary, she admitted the success of the series gave her enough financial stability to do something far more meaningful than buying luxury cars: paying off her parent’s mortgage.
The actress also addressed another assumption fans often make – that lead actors have significant influence over a show’s creative direction. According to Clarke, that was not the case.
She confirmed she had no “creative input” on Game of Thronesand added, “nor did I want any.”
Instead, Clarke said she trusted showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss completely, calling them “geniuses” and praising their attention to detail.
“I was given the seasons, and I, to the best of my ability, empathized and understood and tracked every choice she made so it felt like mine,” said Clarke. “I felt like that was what my job was.”
Looking back seven years after the divisive finale, Clarke says time has only deepened her appreciation for the experience.
“Now, as more and more time goes between it and me doing it, the more I’m like, that was incredibly special and that was incredibly rare,” she reflected.
For Clarke, the dragons may be gone, but the gratitude clearly remains.
2026-05-30 12:18:00
