Emilia Clarke Says She’s Missing ‘Quite A Bit’ Of Brain Capacity Following Two Aneurysms

Emilia Clarke spoke about the long-term effects of the two aneurysms she suffered from in 2011 and 2013. Clarke said on the BBC show Sunday Morning that she’s got “quite a bit missing,” from her brain, but that chilling fact “always makes me laugh” because she is still happy to be able to continue to live and work given what she went through.

Clarke’s first aneurysm occurred soon after she finished filming her first season as Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones, which subsequently caused a stroke and subarachnoid hemorrhage in the actor which necessitated brain surgery.

In the wake of the first surgery, Clarke briefly suffered from aphasia according to a New Yorker essay she penned. The actor Bruce Willis was recently diagnosed with this cognitive condition, which affects language and memory functions in the brain.

Even though Clarke went through that aneurysm and then a second traumatic brain surgery in 2013 to address another, she said she is now “able to speak, sometimes articulately, and live my life completely normally without repercussions.” She was also aware of how lucky she is, adding that “I am in the really, really, really small minority of people that can survive that.”

Clarke will be making her return to TV with a role in the upcoming MCU miniseries Secret Invasion. She also recently performed in a staging of the Chekhov play The Seagull on London’s West End.