Emilia Clarke opened up about suffering two brain aneurysms on Sunday morning, admitting that, statistically, it’s a bit of a wonder that she survived at all, let alone that she has had minimal repercussions.
During an interview with the BBC’s “Sunday Morning” in support of her upcoming West End debut in a production of Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull” at the Harold Pinter Theater, the “Game of Thrones” actress admitted that after going through two brain aneurysms within two years of each other, it’s uncommon that she’s retained as much cognitive function as she has.
“The amount of my brain that is no longer usable – it’s remarkable that I am able to speak, sometimes articulately, and live my life completely normally with absolutely no repercussions,” she said. “I am in the really, really, really small minority of people that can survive that.”
She added that at the time, she was in “the most excruciating pain” but now, she actually gets a bit of a kick out of saying that portions of her brain are literally missing.
“There’s quite a bit missing, which always makes me laugh,” she added. “Because strokes – basically, as soon as any part of your brain doesn’t get blood for a second, it’s gone. And so the blood finds a different route to get around, but then whatever bit is missing is therefore gone.”
That said, she added that she doesn’t dwell on what’s gone, and just enjoys the fact that she is healthy now, and hasn’t had an issue since.
“I gave up wondering because I thought: Well, this is who you are. This is the brain that you have,” she said. “So there’s no point in kind of, continually wracking your brains as to what might not be there, because what you have now is great, so let’s work with that.”
You can watch Clarke’s full interview with “Sunday Morning” in the video above.
