Now that Emilia Clarke has finally moved on from Game of Thrones, the Emmy-nominated English actress will likely pop up in another massive Hollywood franchise sooner rather than later (not counting Solo: A Star Wars Story, as a sequel seems unlikely at this point).
However, it appears that — despite how busy she likely was while filming Game of Thrones — Clarke almost joined another Hollywood behemoth, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, years back.
Drew Pearce, a co-writer of Iron Man 3, recently shared an Instagram photo that reveals Clarke almost joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe with an appearance in Iron Man 3, the final film in the Iron Man standalone franchise (Tony Stark/Iron Man would go on to appear in various other MCU projects such as Captain America: Civil War, Spider-Man: Homecoming and all of the Avengers movies).
“My finest hour: at an early Iron Man Three table read,” the Instagram caption begins. “Downey, Cheadle, Emilia Clarke (long story, the script changed)… all vaguely terrifying,” Pearce continues.
“Obviously this was in 2012 when everyone was more racist and thought all British people sounded the same. Still, belated apologies to @paulbettany and I hope I didn’t let him down,” he goes on to explain.
While Pearce is relatively vague about what happened, it appears that a change in the script ultimately resulted in Clarke parting ways with the project.
Iron Man 3, which was much better received than Iron Man 2, eventually went on to star Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Rebecca Hall.
As for Clarke, while she may have (temporarily) missed the MCU money train, she still went on to become one of the most recognizable actresses in the world through her powerhouse portrayal of Daenerys Targaryen.
