Actress Emilia Clarke, who is known for playing Daenerys Targaryen in the Game of Thrones, has talked about surviving two brain hemorrhages during her time on the fantasy drama show, which left her feeling that she had “cheated death.” She shared that after her second brain hemorrhage, she became convinced she was “meant to die,” during an appearance on a podcast. The 39-year-old actress said: “I was just convinced that I had cheated death and I was meant to die. Every day, that's all I could think about.” Clarke recalled suffering her first brain hemorrhage shortly after wrapping the show’s first season, reports people.com. She said she had been stressed following the sudden changes in her life and career when she collapsed during a workout at a London gym. “The closest thing to describe it is imagine an elastic band just snapping around your brain,” she said. “This insane pressure.” The actress recalled crawling to the bathroom and vomiting from the pain before realizing something was seriously wrong. “In that moment, I knew I was being brain-damaged,” she said.

 

Clarke said she repeatedly reminded herself she was “an actor” while waiting for help as she had just landed her dream job and wanted to hold onto it. According to Clarke, doctors initially struggled to identify what was happening and assumed drugs could be involved because she was young. She was later transferred to a specialist hospital after a nurse suggested she receive a brain scan. The actress said she spent the early weeks after the hemorrhage focused on convincing the show executives and the show’s creators that she would recover in time to continue working. “I was so ashamed that this thing had happened and that the people who had employed me might see me as weak or see me as something that could be broken,” Clarke said. Clarke later suffered a second aneurysm while living in New York and performing in a Broadway play. Doctors had been monitoring the aneurysm through regular scans after spotting it during treatment for the first hemorrhage. While promoting Game of Thrones at San Diego Comic-Con shortly after one of her surgeries, Clarke remembered thinking, “‘If I'm going to die, I'll do it on live TV.’