In an interview with Dax Shepard on his podcast Armchair Expert, Clarke credited former GoT co-star Jason Momoa for helping her emerge from the first season unscathed.
“He took care of me in an environment where I didn’t know I needed to be taken care of,” Clarke said. “Jason was an experienced actor who had done a bunch of stuff before coming onto Game of Thrones. He said, ‘This is how it’s meant to be and how it’s not meant to be. I’m going to make sure that’s not the case.’ So he was always like, ‘Can we get her a robe? She’s shivering!”
She also added that Momoa cried more than she did during those scenes.
Now that she is older and more experienced, Clarke appreciates Momoa’s active role more. “It’s only now I realize how fortunate I was. That could’ve gone many, many different ways. He was so kind and considerate, and cared about me as a human being,” Clarke said.
However, their characters’ love story has also sparked some criticism.
Yes, the doomed love story of Momoa’s Khal Drogo and Clarke’s Daenerys Targaryen stands out for its tenderness—Etsy is teeming with couples’ jewelry emblazoned with the Dothraki phrase of devotion (“Moon of my life, my sun and stars”). But the glorification of Drogo and Daenerys eclipses the vexed start of their relationship. Daenerys was effectively sold to the Dothraki leader to fuel her brother’s, Viserys’s, political strivings (he got his). On their wedding night, Drogo rapes the future Mother of Dragons. It’s a painful scene to watch — and a start to the show’s controversial habit of using rape as a plot point.
But adoring Clarke and Momoas’s relationship off-screen is far less complicated than shipping their characters. Their friendship is adorable, as evidenced by Clarke’s comments in the podcast.
“He’s one of those incredibly rare people—their personality and their spirit is as big as he is. He just takes up the whole world. It’s fucking beautiful,” Clarke said.
