Emilia Clarke may be an expert on her "Game of Thrones" character Daenerys Targaryen now, but that wasn't always the case.
In a new feature with Esquire magazine, in which the actress was named the "Sexiest Woman Alive," Clarke explains how she researched the Mother of Dragons before auditioning for the HBO series.
She turned to Wikipedia!
"I had two scenes which told me nothing and not very much time in which to read all those [George R. R. Martin] books," Clarke explained. "So I did what every good actor does and Wikipedia'd the living crap out of it."
At the time of her audition, author George R.R. Martin had published the first four novels from the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series. Totaling over 4,000 pages, no wonder Clarke didn't have time to read all the books.
Daenerys' story has quite the Wikipedia entry.
In the first book, "A Game of Thrones," the 13-year-old character is molested and abused by her older brother, forced to marry a man nearly twice her age, and suffers a devastating miscarriage. All before performing a fire-magic ritual and bringing three dragons to life.
Good thing Clarke did her homework.
This isn't the first time Clarke has discussed her initial audition for the HBO show runners. During an appearance on "The Tonight Show," the actress told Jimmy Fallon about an awkward moment. "I was asking if I could do anything else...and [producer] David Benioff suggested I do a dance, ha ha ha]. So I did. I did a dance."
When Fallon asked what kind of moves Clarke busted out, she admitted it was bad.
"Well I don't know how to do it, but I did the funky chicken, and then I morphed into the robot," she admitted.
Between the Wikipedia research and her dance moves, Clarke clearly had what the casting director was looking for.
