Unlike many of her Game of Thrones colleagues, Emilia Clarke didn’t come from money. In a candid piece she penned for The New Yorker, the actress revealed that she’s where she is today because of the sacrifices her mom and dad (the latter of whom sadly passed away after battling cancer) made. “We weren’t wealthy, but my brother and I went to private schools,” she said. “Our parents, who wanted everything for us, struggled to keep up with the fees.”
She started out at the “idyllic, orderly, and sweet” Squirrel School in Oxford, but things got a little harder when she followed her brother to the private boarding school St. Edward’s. “It was a fancy school, and we weren’t that fancy,” she told Rolling Stone. “People were good at hockey and wanted to be lawyers. I just wanted to be everyone’s friend.” She noted, “It was painful — I was on the outskirts, peeping in, going, ‘You guys look fun. Can I come to join?'”
After leaving Teddies, as it’s affectionately known, Clarke applied to “a bajillion schools” in the UK, but was rejected by all the top drama institutions. She was finally offered a place at Drama Centre London when another suffered her broken leg, but she was far from the teacher’s favorite. In the end, this worked to her advantage. “If you’re a favorite at school, you’re f***ed for life,” she said. “You come out and you’re like, ‘Hey, where’s my golden egg?'”
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