The actor opens up to ET about how the 'GoT' cast supported Clarke through her life-threatening health scares.
Much like how his character, Jorah Mormont, has supported Daenerys Targaryen on Game of Thrones, Iain Glen was there for Emilia Clarke.
ET's Leanne Aguilera sat down with the actor at GoT's New York City press day on Tuesday, where he opened up about Clarke's recent emotional reveal that she suffered two aneurysms during her time on the HBO series. Glen couldn't help but praise his co-star for her strength.
"I did [know about her health struggles]," he shared. "She went through the mill. I mean, she's such an amazing lady, and she was so strong, but she had real scares."
"I think when you sort of come out the end of something like that, everything must feel golden," he continued. "I think the Thrones family were great with her. I hope she'd say that, but they shepherded her and looked after her as much as they could."
In an essay for The New Yorker published last month, Clarke revealed she had her first aneurysm at age 24, shortly after filming had wrapped on season one of GoT. She secretly underwent brain surgery and spent a month in the hospital recovering, only to undergo another surgery after filming season three in 2013, from which she experienced complications and a massive bleed, leading to yet another operation. Clarke said she was "convinced" she wasn't going to live, but she pushed through.
"I think in a funny way, she was always happy to get back to...I don't know, the warm world of Thrones as that contradiction [to time in the hospital]," Glen told ET. "But the spirit has always been extraordinary for all of us as actors while we've been on the show."
The actor and Clarke are still close -- she was the first person he texted after reading through Jorah's final episode -- and he's, of course, rooting for Dany to win the Iron Throne.
"There's no surprises there," he joked, before revealing that Jorah is 100% team Dany -- even amid her romance with her nephew, Jon Snow (Kit Harington).
"I think he's cool about it now. I think much time has come to pass, and that hope [for a relationship with Daenerys] has now subsided for him," Glen shared. "Jorah was very happy to be brought back inside her fold and be forgiven for past misdemeanors. The idea of reciprocated physical love is now off the agenda... But no, I think he feels OK."
The actor also cracked that with Jorah's storyline "teetering on the edge of his own demise" for most the series, he couldn't be happier to have made it to the final season.
"The guys nailed it," Glen said of his reaction to his final episode. "It's such a hard thing to pull off. I think the expectations are so high, and I just think they managed all the storylines incredibly well. It's full of the Thrones' mix of the unexpected and dramatic and massive set pieces and extraordinary happenings and things beyond our ken. It's kind of more of the same, but bigger and better."
Game of Thrones returns April 14 on HBO.
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