Emilia Clarke

Emilia Clarke plays Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones. The role begins with a young woman living under other people's expectations and opens into a much larger story. Clarke has to sustain the sense of a person beneath the titles, scale and spectacle surrounding her.

Her work beyond the series includes Louisa Clark in Me Before You, Qi'ra in Solo: A Star Wars Story, Sarah Connor in Terminator Genisys and Kate in Last Christmas. Those films give her room for humour and warmth as well as genre drama.

Clarke has also performed on stage in Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Seagull. Daenerys is her defining television role, but the lighter work is a useful reminder of how different her presence can be away from a struggle for power.