The 32-year-old actress, who famously plays Daenerys Tarcaryen in Game of Thrones, took her place on the red sofa alongside Phoebe Waller-Bridge, 33, with whom she starred in Solo: A Star Wars Story back in May. Emilia Clarke didn’t appear to be prepared, however, for the rude nature of her pal’s embarrassing story as the actress launched into an awkward recollection of a theatre prank which went slightly too far. “I’ve had so many regrets about telling you guys about this story,” Phoebe prefaced her tale by warning, as Emilia looked on, clearly intrigued. “Backstage there are some japes with actors that keep the other actors entertained when it’s a really long run,” she continued, adding: “I’m really sorry, mum, that I’m telling this story. I was doing Hay Fever and it was a three-month run and there’s one moment on stage where I was off-stage with this other actor, Sam, and one of the other characters, played by Freddie Fox, would storm across the stage, open this door and we’d be standing behind the door, masked from the audience,” she explained.
“And he had to go, [gasps] and then he’d slam the door and run back onto the stage.
“So we always used to do something quirky behind the door to make him laugh every night,” Phoeve told her captive Graham Norton Show audience.
“We started off doing like a little, ooh we’re kissing or we’d put a funny hat on Sam, but it was three months long, this run, and we had to up the game every night.
“We started getting the stage management involved and there were massive hotdog costumes and we brought people from outside to come in so every time Freddie would open the door he’d be really excited,” she remembered, giggling nervously.
“It was building and building and there was a week left and we were exhausting ourselves. And then suddenly, it was getting to the last night and we were like, ‘We have to have a big finish, what are we going to do for Freddie?’
“Neither of us could think of anything and suddenly we did the matinee and we’d done this kind of wild spangly glittery thing and then on the final performance we had nothing,” Phoebe said.
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“We were like, ‘We have to do something! We have to do something!’ We could hear Freddie coming across the stage and we were like, ‘We haven’t thought of anything!’ And then Sam just said, ‘I know, I’ve got it! Just… show them your a***hole.’”
At this point, Game of Thrones beauty Emilia broke down in a fit of laughter.
“I was like, ‘What?! That’s awful!’ and he was like, ‘It’s brilliant.’ The stage management around me were going, ‘Perfect!’” Phoebe added, as Emilia clutched her chest, still giggling uncontrollably.
Killing Eve creator Phoebe seemed mortified as she explained how Freddie had opened the door to see her bent over, fully on show, and recoiled in shock.
“I turned around and I saw the glitterati of the London stage, Olivia Colman, Lindsey Duncan, Kevin McNally all going: ‘…Yeah, too far,’” she concluded.
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Emilia got to know Phoebe when they starred alongside each other in Solo: A Star Wars story, in which they played Qi’ra and L3-37 respectively.
Meanwhile, the blonde beauty’s role in Game of Thrones is set to come to an end when the eighth and final series airs in April.
The cast have remained tight-lipped about spoilers, with who will survive the epic last battle a mystery.
Emilia has played the Mother of Dragons Daenerys since Game of Thrones first hit screens in 2011.
She is also known for her roles in Terminator Genisys and Me Before You.
Game of Thrones season 8 returns to Sky Atlantic in April 2019.