No red wedding-level drama here! Tamzin Merchant broke her silence about what it was like to be reformulated by Emilia Clarke following the original The Game of Thrones pilot – and it looks like everything worked out.
although The Game of Thrones, which ran from 2011 to 2019 on HBO, was one of the most beloved programs in recent history, its original 2009 pilot did not impress executives. Creators David Benioff and DB Weiss they had another chance to make things better, which they clearly did. This included redesigning the main characters, including making Emilia the new Mother of Dragons for the show.
In a new interview with Weekly entertainment, Tamzin – who currently stars on Amazon’s Carnival Row– admitted that she was not excited to play Daenerys Targaryen, the character Emilia would continue to play for eight seasons after the series remake the original pilot. Tamzin called the experience “a great lesson”.
“It was a lesson that if my guts are telling me a story it’s not something I’m excited to tell, so I shouldn’t try to be excited just because other people are telling me that I should be excited,” she explained. “I didn’t have any training as an actor, I just have my instincts. And what excites and motivates me is a convincing story and character.”