Emilia Clarke has been not-so-secretly invading her way onto our screens for well over a decade now, ever since she found international fame and acclaim in her breakout role as Daenerys Targaryen on Game of Thrones. Since embodying the Mother of Dragons herself, the British actress has played Terminator‘s Sarah Connor, Han Solo’s first love, and a Marvel alien with a diddy Dave Baustisa arm ⏤ but how much is she worth?
As the leading lady of perhaps the biggest TV show of the 2010s, you’d think it only appropriate that Clarke brought home a big, fat paycheck for each and every episode of GoT — and you would be right about that. For seasons 5 and 6, the 37-year-old star received a considerable $500,000 per episode. Multiply that by those two 10-part seasons, and that means Clarke earned $10 million from just one quarter of Thrones‘ runtime.
For the HBO fantasy epic’s final runs, seasons 7 and 8, Clarke was awarded a significant pay-bump up to $1.1 million per episode, although with the reduced episode count, that means she only (!) accrued a further $14 million before the series concluded in 2019. Since then, gigs like earning a cool $750,000 for Marvel’s Secret Invasion have only helped increase Clarke’s star power and bank balance. Although her two properties, one in California worth $4.64 million and one in Hampstead, London, priced at $8 million, probably put a dent in her savings.
All told, then, Emilia Clarke is believed to have a net worth of $20 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. That’s nothing to sniff at, for sure, but also — to put it in perspective within the Hollywood hierarchy — it’s just a fifth of what Meryl Streep is worth. Clarke is also only the third richest Game of Thrones star, behind joint winners Jason Momoa and Peter Dinklage, both worth $25 million apiece.