Before Emilia Clarke was cast as the Mother of Dragons on Game of Thrones, actress Tamzin Merchant from The Tudors was actually picked for the role. Merchant even played Daenerys Targaryen on the first pilot made for the show, but show runners Dan Weiss and David Benioff ended up reconsidering. Eventually, Emilia Clarke was eventually tapped to replace Merchant and the pilot was reshot. "Emilia was the only person we saw — and we saw hundreds — who could carry the full range that Daenerys required," Weiss and Benioff explained to Vanity Fair in May 2018. "Young actors aren't often asked to play a combination of Joan of Arc, Lawrence of Arabia, and Napoleon."