Emilia Clarke finally responds to rumors of 'GoT' cast making $300K per episode: 'I'd been driving...'
'Game of Thrones' star Emilia Clarke quashed all rumors of stars of the hit HBO fantasy drama earning a reported $300,00 salary per episode. One of the show's perennial talking points was the salaries of the marquee names, and the British actor was one of the cast members whose popularity ratings rose through the ranks. Clarke played the “Mother of Dragons” Daenerys Targaryen for the entirety of the show from 2011 to 2019 with a major role in the final season.
In an exclusive with Variety, Clarke set the record straight on the salary rumors. "We didn’t earn that much," she said. "Can you imagine? I’d have been driving a couple of Porsches!" While the actress didn't reveal the exact figure, she did add that her salary enabled her to pay off her parents’ mortgage. Earlier, the news of their salaries made headlines after The Standard dropped some numbers on how much the stars of the show were earning. "Pre season 8, the core cast members, including Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington, were all apparently making a rather decent $500,000 (£370,000) per episode, but reports have suggested top cast members bagged a rather handsome pay rise: an extra $200,000 (£151,000) per episode," the outlet wrote. It's worth noting that this report was from 2019.
This came ahead of THR's Bryn Sandberg reporting the salary in 2018: "The fantasy drama’s five core actors — Peter Dinklage, Kit Harington, Lena Headey, Emilia Clarke and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau — are said to be each making around $1.2 million an episode for the final season, which is expected to bow this spring." The reports only added to more of the fan-buzz as the show's divisive finale premiered in 2019. The plot and the character arcs of the major characters were met with immense criticism. However, what worked for the actors was the way their career trajectories opened up, with each of them scoring big projects after. In related news, all eyes now are on Season 3 of the 'House of the Dragon'. The new instalment releases June 21 on HBO and HBO Max.
