Emilia Clarke proves there is more to Dothraki than death threats in a recent appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers.
Clarke, who plays the indomitable Daenerys Targaryen on HBO’s Game of Thrones, sets Meyers straight on the fact that Dothraki is, in fact, a real language created for the show. Linguist David J. Peterson crafted Dothraki, and all of the other fictional languages used on Game of Thrones — but even after six seasons, his words present Clarke with a continual challenge.
“You get it in English, at the top in the first script, it’s like, ‘This will be in Dothraki,'” Clarke recounts of her learning process. Following English is the Dothraki speech, followed by a literal translation, and then finally the dialogue in spoken English.
“And then I get an MP3, and then my kitchen hears it for weeks and weeks and weeks on end, until I sound convincing,” Clarke says.
But given the opacity (and complete invention) of the Dothraki language, Emilia Clarke admits that there have been times when she replaced her lines with something a little more… interesting.
“With the latest marvelous actors we’ve had doing Dothraki with us, it was a long day,” Clarke admits, giggling. Not realizing that the camera was on her, Clarke allowed a moment of silliness to take over.
“I thought it would be funny if I did ‘MMMBop’ in Dothraki,” she says. “And that didn’t help him at all! And then I think some of that was definitely my take.”
Ever game, Clarke dives in to her rendition of the Hanson hit, translated into the language of the brutal horse lords.
“I can’t stress how much less catchy that is!” Meyers laughs.
Game of Thrones 6×06, “Blood of My Blood,” airs Sunday, May 29 at 9:00 p.m. on HBO.
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