Game of Thrones A-Z by Martin Howden Read Free Book Online Page A

away.
    For Clarke, it wasn’t a part that came easily – the role was originally played by another actress in the un-aired pilot before she was eventually cast as Daenerys.
    ‘I was only aware of it when we got down to the final stages really, that they had already cast someone who was in a pilot that was only seen internally,’ Clarke said to heyyouguys.co.uk .
    ‘Once they decided to give the whole show the go-ahead, they decided to do a number of recasts, including Dany [Daenerys] as a character.’
    Clarke was born in London, and quickly showed an interest in acting after seeing the musical  Show Boat  on stage, where her father worked as a theatre sound engineer.
    She studied at the Drama Centre London, and eventually landed a small-screen role in an episode of the soap  Doctors  in 2009, and then in 2010’s Syfy movie  Triassic Attack . Clarke remarked, ‘I told my parents I wanted to be an actor and they were getting ready for a life of unemployment so they’re just happy I’m in work!’
    She then landed the role in  Game of Thrones . ‘My life is pretty much unrecognisable to what it was before. It’s incredible!’ she said to  heyyouguys.co.uk . ‘Never in a million years did I think I’d be doing something like this now, this early on so fresh out of drama school. Even having  Game of   Thrones , I never knew that it would be the success that it was, and hopefully will continue to be. ‘They took a massive risk with me. I had a couple of auditions then a screen-test in LA and then they gave me the part. It was as simple as that, there’s no huge story to tell.’
    She says about her character, ‘I think first and foremost she’s a survivalist, and she knows what she needs to do to survive. Unlike many other characters in the show, she doesn’t have an egotistical need or desire or want for the Iron Throne; it’s something that is her destiny, that she genuinely doesn’t have any control over. “Heavy is the head that wears the crown” – if she didn’t have to do it then she probably wouldn’t. In terms of that, she just realises what her options are and has to make an incredibly difficult choice. I have a problem with her using her sexuality. It’s more she knows what she has to do and, as a result of that, finds the love that she finds with Khal [Drogo] and grows in confidence.’
    F
    FANTASY
    For a long time, fantasy has been seen either as silly stories about monsters or a genre packed with stories so mammoth and dense that viewers or readers needed an encyclopaedia of that world to understand what is going on.
    These fantastical worlds often featured even more fantastical characters and genre stereotypes. But Peter Jackson’s  Lord of the Rings changed that. Based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s epic trilogy, Jackson’s films were triumphs in every sense. A triumph in getting made in the first place (not many studios will agree to filming three fantasy films back to back with a director pretty new to the Hollywood blockbuster lark), a box-office triumph and an Oscar triumph. It changed fantasy overnight.
    Ian Bogost, Professor of Digital Media at Georgia Institute of Technology, told CNN that  The Lord of the   Rings  was the start of making fantasy mainstream. ‘Probably Peter Jackson is to blame,’ he said. ‘This is all really about Peter Jackson. The hugely successful  Lord of the Rings  movies not only taught untrained viewers how to watch epic fantasy on the big screen, it also proved to Hollywood that fantasy could be a viable mass-market genre. The  Lord   of the Rings  films are 10 years old at this point, and they were incredibly lucrative. That’s what it takes – an investment that shows that the private sector will go and watch these.’
    But, until the success of  Game of Thrones  and  The Lord of   the Rings , fantasy was something in the shadows. As Jackson said himself during a commentary of the film, he doesn’t like magic. Instead, characters