A popular actress from Game of Thrones recently shared on Late Night With Seth Meyers that the show’s language creator criticized her accent when speaking one of the made-up languages. Game of Thrones featured several unique languages, most notably Dothraki and High Valyrian, which were developed by linguist David J. Peterson based on phrases from the books. Peterson previously discussed the difficulty of learning these fictional languages and mentioned a particular actress whose pronunciation he intentionally kept somewhat unrefined.
Emilia Clarke recently told Seth Meyers she was upset and angry that language coach Paul Peterson criticized her Dothraki accent in Game of Thrones. While Meyers sympathized, Entertainment Weekly reports that Peterson has clarified his comments, explaining that Clarke misinterpreted his original meaning.
Peterson believes Emilia Clarke may have misinterpreted his comments, clarifying that he never criticized her pronunciation of Dothraki. He explained that Daenerys Targaryen’s character was intentionally portrayed as imperfect in the language, as it wasn’t her native tongue. To achieve this, the actors were given recordings of deliberately flawed Dothraki. Conversely, Jason Momoa, Amrita Acharia, Elyes Gabel, and Steven Cole, being native speakers, received accurate recordings to demonstrate their fluency.
According to Peterson, Daenerys’s imperfect Dothraki was intentional and served a purpose in her storyline. He explained that pointing out errors in her pronunciation would be similar to criticizing Colin Firth’s stutter in The King’s Speech – it would miss the entire point of the character. Peterson even deliberately included grammatical and punctuation mistakes in the Dothraki lines he provided to her, specifically to maintain this authenticity.
Emelia Clarke Didn’t Seem to Understand Her Character’s Language Struggles
You know, watching Emilia Clarke talk about her Dothraki on Seth Meyers’ show was a little confusing. She mentioned reading that the language creator thought her pronunciation wasn’t great, which made it sound like a real failing on her part. But then I looked up the original quote, and it turns out David Peterson, the creator, actually liked that she didn’t sound perfectly fluent! He said it was perfect for her character, that she understood and could speak the language, but deliberately didn’t sound like a native speaker. It’s funny how things can get twisted – he thought it was a good performance choice, and she made it sound like a mistake!
I was really disappointed by that talk show segment with Meyers and Clarke. They made fun of David Peterson, the language creator for Game of Thrones, because they didn’t seem to understand it’s a constructed language. Meyers even joked about Daenerys’s Dothraki, implying she was already fluent, which totally missed the point – her character was supposed to be learning it! It almost suggested the native speakers were the ones getting it wrong. It sounded like Clarke thought Peterson was criticizing her performance, but actually, her awkwardness was intentional for the character.
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2026-01-16 22:48