In the glittering yet grueling world of fame, it can take just a few words to change everything. For actress Emilia Clarke, those words came from Oscar-winner Emma Thompson, and they became a personal manifesto that reshaped her life after Game of Thrones and a near-fatal health battle.
“There are things I want to do, and I’m going to do them.”
A Turning Point After Pressure and Recovery
Clarke, best known as Daenerys Targaryen, spent nearly a decade as the face of one of television’s most intense productions. The success brought immense acclaim—but also relentless pressure. Behind the scenes, she quietly faced two life-threatening brain aneurysms, one in 2011 and another in 2013, during the early seasons of the series.
Her recovery was long and private until she revealed the full story in 2019. Surviving such trauma with minimal lasting effects placed her in what she described as a “really small minority.” The experience changed her outlook—and Emma Thompson’s advice, shared years later on the set of Last Christmas, helped her turn that new perspective into purpose.
From Survival to Self-Determination
Thompson’s words were less a pep talk than a declaration of autonomy. For Clarke, they marked the beginning of life beyond obligation.
“I realized I had been living in service to other people’s expectations,” Clarke said in later interviews. “That sentence—‘There are things I want to do’—became my permission slip.”
It wasn’t just a shift in career choices, but in mindset. She began prioritizing work that felt meaningful rather than monumental, and found new balance between creativity, advocacy, and self-care.
A Career Reimagined
Since Game of Thrones ended in 2019, Clarke has deliberately charted a varied path:
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Film & Television: After starring opposite Henry Golding in Last Christmas, Clarke joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the 2023 Disney+ series Secret Invasion, marking a new era of storytelling.
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Theater: In 2022, she made her West End debut as Nina in Chekhov’s The Seagull, a role that reconnected her to her theatrical roots.
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Advocacy: Her organization SameYou now supports rehabilitation for young survivors of brain injury and stroke, turning her private recovery into a public mission.
Choosing Purpose Over Pressure
In an industry that often celebrates endurance over well-being, Clarke’s story resonates far beyond celebrity culture. Her embrace of Thompson’s nine words underscores a cultural shift toward valuing agency and authenticity over constant achievement.
By turning survival into service and success into self-expression, Emilia Clarke has proved that empowerment doesn’t always come from grand gestures—it can start with a single, resolute sentence:
“There are things I want to do, and I’m going to do them.”