'Didn't earn that much': Emilia Clarke talks about 'GoT' salary
What's the story
Emilia Clarke, who played Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones, has finally put to rest the rumors that she and her co-stars earned $300,000 each. In a recent interview with Variety, she said they "didn't earn that much." "Can you imagine? I'd have been driving a couple of Porsches." Although Clarke did not reveal how much the cast was paid, she shared that her earnings provided enough financial security to pay off her parents' mortgage.
Input
Did Clarke get any creative input in the show?
She told the outlet that she didn't have "creative input" in the show's storyline, adding, "nor did I want any." She added that showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss were "fastidious about us saying the lines exactly as they've written them." "I was given the seasons, and I, to the best of my ability, empathized and understood and tracked every choice she made so it felt like mine." "I felt like that was what my job was."
Equal pay
'I was not discriminated against because I was a woman'
Meanwhile, before the show's finale, Clarke had emphasized that she was "always paid the same amount as" her male co-stars. "It was my first job, and I was not discriminated against because I was a woman, in my paycheck," she had said during a 2018 interview at the Cannes Film Festival. The show aired from 2011 to 2019 and also starred Kit Harington, Lena Headey, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, among others.