“It was the most excruciating pain.”
Back in 2019, Emilia revealed that she suffered two brain aneurysms in 2011 and 2013, and had to get surgery to save her life.
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Emilia referred to the experience as “excruciating pain,” and that starring in Game of Thrones helped “sweep me up and give me that purpose.”
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“The amount of my brain that is no longer usable — it’s remarkable that I am able to speak, sometimes articulately, and live my life completely normally with absolutely no repercussions,” she explained.
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“I am in the really, really, really small minority of people that can survive that.”
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Emilia also talked about seeing her brain scans after the aneurysms and realizing that “quite a bit” of her brain function had disappeared afterwards.
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“Strokes, basically, as soon as any part of your brain doesn’t get blood for a second, it’s gone,” she explained, after saying that thinking about her lower brain function “makes me laugh.”
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“So the blood finds a different route to get around, but then whatever bit is missing is therefore gone.”
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Scary stuff, but it’s good that Emilia feels comfortable opening up about her experience. You can watch the whole interview here.