Did Emilia Clarke earn $300,000 per episode on Game of Thrones? Actor reacts

For years, reports claiming that the principal cast of Game of Thrones earned $300,000 per episode have circulated widely online. Now, actor Emilia Clarke has weighed in on the speculation, calling those figures "wildly exaggerated".

In a recent interview with Variety, Clarke said the often-cited salary reports were far from accurate, pushing back against one of the most persistent claims associated with HBO's blockbuster fantasy drama.

Clarke, who played Daenerys Targaryen throughout the show's eight-season run, did not reveal her actual earnings. However, she said the series provided enough financial stability to help pay off her parents' mortgage. She also reiterated that she received equal pay alongside her male co-stars.

Addressing the long-standing reports, Clarke said, "We didn't earn that much. Can you imagine? I'd have been driving a couple of Porsches."

While she did not specify how much the cast was paid, her comments directly challenge salary figures that have been widely reported for more than a decade. Elsewhere in the interview, Clarke reflected on portraying Daenerys, one of the most influential and debated characters in the series.

"I was given the seasons, and I, to the best of my ability, empathised and understood and tracked every choice she made so it felt like mine. I felt like that was what my job was," she said.

Created for television from the novels of George RR Martin, Game of Thrones premiered in 2011 and concluded in 2019 after eight seasons. The ensemble cast included Kit Harington, Lena Headey, Sophie Turner and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, among others.

Clarke had previously addressed pay parity on the show during a 2018 appearance at the Cannes Film Festival. At the time, she said, "It was my first job, and I was not discriminated against because I was a woman, in my paycheck."

That same year, court documents linked to a legal dispute involving Coster-Waldau and his former manager revealed that the actor earned $1.07 million per episode for at least six episodes of the final season.

Since Game of Thrones, Clarke has built a diverse filmography across genres. She portrayed Sarah Connor in Terminator Genisys, starred as Qi'ra in Solo: A Star Wars Story, and appeared in films such as Last Christmas, Above Suspicion, The Pod Generation, as well as the Marvel series Secret Invasion.