Elizabeth Olsen Could Have Been Our Daenerys Targaryen, But She Hated The Audition
We love Emilia Clarke, but Olsen could have been painfully perfect for that tired "hey, look at this strong female character suddenly losing her mind!" trope.
Elizabeth Olsen currently enjoys a lot of love from Marvel fans for her impeccable portrayal of Wanda Maximoff a.k.a. Scarlet Witch, but few people remember that the MCU star could also have been the idol of the Game of Thrones fandom.
Olsen was among many actresses seeking the role of Daenerys Targaryen, the Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea. However, the audition process was so awful (Olsen's wording!) that it was probably for the best that she didn't get the role.
"I was doing the Khaleesi speech when she comes out of the fire. It was awful. I didn’t get a callback," Olsen told Vulture back in 2019. "It was the most awkward audition I’d ever had. And she’s making this speech to thousands of people about how she’s their queen."
According to Olsen, the casting directors didn't know whether they wanted Daenerys to have a British accent or not, so the actors had to do the speech in both. The Marvel star rendered the audition "terrible."
Interestingly, the speech scene never made it to the final cut of Game of Thrones. Instead, Daenerys was shown to have miraculously survived the fire on Khal Drogo’s pyre, with three baby dragons clinging to her.
No matter how great Olsen could have been as Daenerys Targaryen, hardly anyone can deny that Emilia Clarke turned out to be the perfect actress for the job... even though Game of Thrones season 8 butchered her character, according to the majority of fans.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Olsen is just amazing as Marvel's Scarlet Witch. However, the fate of her character in the MCU is currently unclear, as Wanda Maximoff buried herself under the debris of the Wundagore castle.
Source: Vulture