‘Game of Thrones’ star, Emilia Clarke, opened up about the emotional experience of dealing with life, loss, a death scare and more during her time in the film industry. The actress, who famously revealed her near-death experiences while battling brain haemorrhages, in a recent podcast ‘How To Fail with Elizabeth Day’ spoke about balancing work commitments while her father spent his final days in the hospital battling cancer.Recalling the final days before his death, Clarke revealed that she was filming a ‘tiny’ independent movie in Kentucky while her father was seriously ill in hospital. She said, “So, I was filming this tiny movie that barely even got released because I really wanted to do it. And I remember leaving and then being like, ‘Should I be leaving?’”According to Clarke, her mother encouraged her to continue working, reminding her, “Your father’s a professional. He would kill you if you didn’t do this job.”The actor said she was filming in Kentucky, when she received a devastating call informing her that her father was undergoing an operation he “might not live through,” adding that he survived the surgery initially. Clarke later received another call asking her to return home. However, by the time she arrived, her father was in a coma.She went on to reveal that after sitting with her father for three days, she received a call from her work, asking her to rejoin the shoot. She said, “I sat with him for three days, and then my job was like, ‘We can’t continue filming if you don’t come home,’” she said.Despite the circumstances, Clarke said her mother again urged her to finish filming saying, “You’ve got two weeks left. Just go, just go back.”However, soon after she returned to Kentucky, she recalled being woken in the middle of the night with another urgent message. “‘It’s time. You got to come back’. So, I didn’t tell anyone. I just left,” she said.Clarke then described her agonising journey back home, including a long flight during which she had no way of contacting her family. “I was like, what can I do? I’m going to do a thought experiment. A butterfly can be in a hospital. And so I imagined that I’m flying around the hospital and I’m making sure that the doctors are going to do a really good job and I’m fluttering around my dad being like, ‘I’m coming. I’m coming home.’”Clarke said she eventually fell asleep on the plane and had a vivid dream. “In the dream, I’m in my airline seat and my dad’s hospital bed is next to me and he just turns and said, ‘I just came to say goodbye.’”When she landed, Clarke said she received a text from her mother reading, “Don’t rush,” immediately realising that her father had passed away.After returning home, Clarke spent time with her father’s body alongside her family. She then described a moment that left a lasting emotional impact on her. “My mom and my brother had been in the hospital for days and we open the house and this butterfly is flying around the room,” she recalled.Clarke said butterflies have since become deeply connected to memories of her father.
