(upbeat music)
- You're on these shows where,
every episode could be your last.
I don't know how much you know-
- As in if we're gonna live another episode?
- Live and die, yeah.
- On the show, you have the "phone call".
And you get the call.
- And you're just sitting waiting
for the phone call for the last 10 years?
- No, no, it sort of depends.
Like in the early days, we all kind of like,
"oh this is like a theme, he's gonna be killing everyone."
We're like again, guaranteeing our mortgages
so let's just get that straight.
So you get a phone call from
David and Dan, who are the creators or the show.
And everyone really starts to dread that phone call.
Because if you're like "Oh my God,
"they wanna take me out for dinner."
So then you know that the, the cause of death.
Literally. - That's it.
So nobody wants to go to dinner with them,
or hear from them. - Literally,
but then every time they'd ask you out for dinner
they're like "We're not trying to kill you,
"we just wanna get dinner, we just wanna talk about-"
Yeah, "We just like you and we just wanna
"talk about what you" but for me on a very
real level, 'cause I started so green
and was so incredibly grateful to be employed,
I just assumed that every you know,
impostor syndrome times a million.
I just assumed that every time
I was gonna read the script that I was gonna be
written off because I was just crap.
And that they had had enough.
And that this time was the last time.
So, I was every single season, and genuinely,
until like the last season where you're like
"Oh, wow," - Still here.
- I did the whole, "well, that's good, nice, nice."
- Do you ask questions?
Do you ask where it's going,
how much are you then told?
- They really don't give anything away.
- [Lacey] Does that help you, as an actress?
- Yeah, I don't like to live in
anything other than the season I'm in.
Because with Daenerys, she really has evolved so much
and she's grown so much, and every season
there's something new that happens,
so it does feel like a new character.
I'm very, very lucky in that sense to live through
a character for 10 years but we've grown together.
So I have to just deal with what
I'm dealing with in the moment.
But we have lots of conversations, definitely.
And I think they very quickly started to write
for each individual actor.
But with me, they, I think they definitely,
you start to see in the stage directions.
They're complete goofballs, so most of the stage
directions are like, ridiculous and very funny
and mention really rude things so I can't say.
- Daenerys farts, John looks up?
- Just a lot of like, in-jokes about like,
and then John Snow's hair glistens in the sun.
Like we know it will.
(everyone laughing)
All that kind of nonsense, but yeah.
So they started writing for us very much,
and I think they knew that whatever kind of,
stoic sort of,
cold sensibilities
they might be writing down that I was gonna try
and bring a bit more warmth and a bit more kind of
humanity to her where I possibly could.
That was always a conversation
we were always having.
Every season I would go off and do something else,
come back and be like "Wassup?"
Yeah, she's gonna sit like this,
this is how she's gonna,
and every time they're like,
"That's really cute but sit up straight.
And don't smile, and you're not funny."
So you have to keep kind of bringing it back into like
the parameters that I myself set up.
- Sure. - Just set up real young.
- Yeah, perfect posture being one of them.
- I knew I had made it in Hollywood when:
Is there an I've arrived, or a pinch me moment?
- Yeah, I was at a- (laughing)
I was at a gala event and I,
someone had asked me to like auction something.
So we were trying to go through all the stuff,
and then I couldn't auction, and I was like,
"I'll just auction a dragon." But you can't do that.
So I was like, I'll auction like,
come and watch your favorite episode with me
and we'll eat you know, a horses heart or something.
Anyway, so I had that, and I get,
I don't think about what it is
until I actually get there and I'm sitting in the room,
and I'm sitting in the room with like
every celebrity on the planet,
going "I thought this would be like a private thing"
like they wouldn't say it out loud.
So they're saying it and then I have to
stand up and attentive thing.
And so, the auction comes up,
the room goes completely silent,
and I'm like I'm gonna die, I'm actually gonna die.
Then one of my friends who was on the table
puts his paddle up, and then suddenly
some other people start to put their paddles up.
And then one of those people was Brad Pitt.
So that was-
- [All] Oooooh!
- I was the color I'm wearing right now,
that was, yeah, that was a pinch me moment.
- But he didn't ultimately win?
- He didn't ultimately win, I know.
My friend ultimately won, go figure.
I was literally like, you can stop now.
(talking over each other)
- I was there, and there was a lot of back and forth.
It was like "No, yes, no, yes"
I mean it was some serious competition.
- It was the most ridiculous surreal
moment of my entire existence.
I usually never call my friends to say anything
and I was like guys, just wanted,
just wanted to let you know.
(funky bass)