Will ‘Last Christmas’ Finally Make Emilia Clarke a True Movie Star?

For eight long years, Game of Thrones fans have been begging to see their favorite TV star, the Mother of Dragons, aka Emilia Clarke, in a role that’s a little less, uh, tortured and murder-y. Not that Clarke wasn’t excellent as Daenerys Targaryen, of course, but anyone who’s seen a single interview with the 33-year-old English actor knows she’s much more goofy, charming and down-to-earth than that final “Dracarys,” would have you believe.

Thankfully, Paul Feig and Emma Thompson have delivered the perfect charming, not-murder-y role for Clarke—not in TV but in a feature film. Last Christmas, which opens in theaters this weekend, is a romantic comedy-drama starring Clarke as a down-on-her-luck department store elf whose life is changed when she meets a man named Tom (Henry Golding). Twitter, of course, thinks it has the tear-jerking plot twist of the movie figured out already, and I won’t say more about that in case their suspicions are correct. But the point is, Clarke’s first post-Game of Thrones role is a Paul Feig-directed movie written by Emma Thompson (who also plays Clarke’s on-screen mother) that features Clarke in green velvet elf shoes saying, “These are dark times.” I couldn’t be more delighted.

Not only is this finally the fun-and-charming role that Clarke deserves, but it’s also, I hope, the role that will launch her into movie stardom. Clarke’s already waded into the feature film waters with movies like Terminator Genisys, Me Before You, and Solo: A Star Wars Story. But despite the mixed responses to those films—of the three, only Me Before You could be considered a hit (and a big hit at that, grossing over $200MM worldwide)—when Game of Thrones was still on the air, the big conversation surrounding Clarke was still Daenerys’s chances at the Iron Throne.

Now Clarke has the chance to flex her comedic muscles as the lead of a big Christmas rom-com, opposite Henry Golding, a man who’s recently risen to movie stardom himself thanks to the very successful Crazy Rich Asians and its upcoming sequels. Whether Last Christmas will be a box office success against its $30 million budget remains to be seen, but I like its chances. This weekend it’s up against Doctor Sleep, a horror sequel to Stephen King’s The Shining; Midway, a war film starring Dennis Quaid, Woody Harrelson and more; and the second week of Terminator: Dark Fate. While Doctor Sleep and Terminator will likely come out on top, none of those seem likely to overlap with the audiences looking to see a Christmas romance, so I’m betting Last Christmas will find its niche.

That said, it’s not all light-hearted Christmas cheer for Clarke in Last Christmas. As revealed in the trailer, her character, Kate, has a long-term illness. “I was really sick and I nearly died,” Clarke tells Golding in the trailer. “I don’t tell people because they get weird.”

It’s a backstory that no doubt hits close to home for Clarke, who earlier this year penned a personal essay in The New Yorker about her experience undergoing emergency surgery following an aneurysm, just after she had finished filming the first season of Game of Thrones. “Just when all my childhood dreams seemed to have come true,” Clarke wrote in the opening paragraph of that essay, “I nearly lost my mind and then my life. I’ve never told this story publicly, but now it’s time.”

Actors don’t need to live the experiences of their characters to do their jobs well, of course, but, that detail does raise the stakes. Last Christmas feels like a role that will resonate not just with Clarke, but with her fans. I think we’re ready for Dany to be a movie star. I know I am.

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