How Emilia Clarke Took Khaleesi From Alt-Medieval Virgin to Feminist ícone 

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\'s Daenerys Targaryen, Emilia Clarke has created one of the strongest, most enduring female characters in our pop-culture consciousness. So where does all that fire come from? Joseph Hooper explores this, as well as Clarke\'s stance on motherhood, sex scenes, and life after

in ELLE\'s exclusive interview in the August issue, on newsstands July 18.

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: "Oh God, I get sleepless nights over it. \'Oh, you\'re gonna mess it up. It\'s the last season, and it\'s going to go wrong.\' My mates are like, \'It\'s you—you [and Daenerys] are one and the same now. You need to trust your instincts!\' And I\'m like, \' No, I\'ve got to do more research!\' The higher everyone places the mantle, the bigger the fall. That sounds really awful, but it\'s true! I don\'t want to disappoint anyone."

Printed cotton-and-silk-blend dress, Dolce & Gabbana. Diamond and gold earrings, Van Cleef & Arpels. Studded-leather belt, What Goes Around Comes Around.

On shooting her commanding sex scene with Dario (Michiel Huisman) in the fourth season of

cocreators David Benioff and Dan Weiss] and thanked them. I was like, \'That\'s a scene I\'ve been waiting for!\' Because I get a lot of crap for having done nudes scenes and sex scenes. That, in itself, is so antifeminist. Women hating on other women is just the problem. That\'s upsetting, so it\'s kind of wonderful to have a scene where I was like, \'There you go!\'

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