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Back when Game of Thrones was at its peak, Emilia Clarke was proffered the lead in Fifty Shades of Grey. And guess what? She seriously considered it. Sam Taylor-Johnson, the director, had a vision Clarke esteemed. However, the actress eventually refused the role. Her reasoning? She didn’t want to be typecast.
Clarke wasn’t against the idea of Fifty Shades. In fact, she thought Taylor-Johnson was brilliant. “Sam is a magician,” Em once said. But while she admired the director, she wasn’t about to sign up for another role that revolved around s*x and nudity. “And it’s annoying as hell and I’m sick and tired of it because I did it for the character,” Clarke explained on The Hollywood Reporter’s Drama Actress roundtable.
I did a minimal amount and I’m pigeonholed for life, so me saying yes to that, where the entire thing is about sensuality and sex and being naked and all of that stuff? I was just like, ‘No way am I going to voluntarily walk into that situation and then never be able to look someone in the eye and be like, ‘No, you can’t keep asking me this question,’” she added.
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And candidly, she had a point. Every interview appeared to circle back to that subject. She had already faced endless questions about her nude scenes on the HBO series. While Clarke had no fuss about nudity in the suitable context, she had grown discomfited with the way it loomed conversations about her career. Even with a diverse career beyond Game of Thrones, Clarke kept facing questions about its intimate scenes.
Taking on Fifty Shades of Grey would have fortified that perception. Clarke knew that if she accepted the role, she would likely continue fronting the same queries for years to come. Emilia Clarke turned down Fifty Shades of Grey and kept her career flexible. She didn’t adhere to one sort of role.
Rather, the English star scouted distinct genres—romance in Me Before You (2016), sci-fi in Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), satire in Last Christmas (2019), crime in Above Suspicion (2021), and dystopia in The Pod Generation (2023). And she’s not done yet. The role of Anastasia Steele was meant for Dakota Johnson. Meanwhile, Clarke built an eclectic portfolio. Her choice let her pick roles that fit her long-term career vision.
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