"Game of Thrones" behind the scenes: Emilia Clark on filming a flying dragon

So, I'm trying to think the first time, the first time I saw you riding a dragon. Yeah, the first time in reality was very funny. Oh yeah? Yeah, because it was like, I'm getting on the dragon! Like we thought about it for ages and then when I first read it I was like genuinely getting tingles reading it being like, I'm gonna get on my baby, I'm gonna do it! I'm so excited and in reality it was, the evolution of that is huge. The evolution of? Of the dragons. Yeah, so it felt the first time it was this hard green shell type thing. It was manually operated and then there was like a pole either end and it was essentially like the dudes on the railway who, those things. So there was a pole coming out the one end and in this hot Asuna sun there's this one dude who's like, and I'm there kind of trying to like, yes badass! And everyone's like, no don't look badass! You look like Harry Potter, you look like you're on a broomstick. And there was kind of like a little like wind blower, someone trying to like get the wind in my face. Sounds like a hairdryer. Literally, yeah, yeah, that's exactly it. So that was the first dragon riding experience in truth and trying so hard to feel it and be like, this is this magical moment for this character. I'm at one with my animals, I can take over the world, I'm gonna fly away, everything's gonna be amazing. But in truth you're like... And people are just kind of looking around being like, it's kind of weird. So what did it evolve into? So then it evolved into this genuinely scary theme park ride. It's a massive hot green shell but now it's sort of split into four parts so they all independently move with one another. So then I jump on it and I'm holding on to the things and I have a harness that attaches me to it because it can get quite violent. So it's all pre-programmed. You've got the incredible people who are in charge of making it move and she's sort of down there with like a joystick. Visual effects will map out the journey of what the dragon is doing and then on top of that they'll figure out what physically the dragon would be doing at each and every moment of that journey. What's moving, how he breathes. Wow. My favourite note. Amelia, remember to allocate for dragon breathing? And I'm like, okay. Oh, I'm on it. Oh, he's breathing. Oh, he's got a cough. And then if you're in a sort of a more violent skyward journey it can be really, really freaky. And so in the beginning it was like, okay, throw yourself into it. Like you're really... Like if I didn't try at all it would just... I would look like a rag doll. And then it was like, no, we need you to kind of look like you know what you're doing. And then I had to learn how to pre-empt the move because technically it's me that is making the dragon move. And so then you're like, wait, you want me to... There's 26 moves in there. You want me to pre-empt all of it and speak Dothraki? Okay. It was fun. It was really fun.