15 Reasons Why We're Girl Crushing On Emilia Clarke

In our eyes, Emilia Clarke is too good for words. Best known for playing Daenerys Targaryen on Game of Thrones, Emilia is an actress of immense talent, whose career is constantly growing. Not only does she excel at her job (and prove to everybody that twisty medieval hairstyles can actually make a person look smokin' hot!), Emilia is also a lovely person whom you'd genuinely want to hang around with. Through her rise to global fame, she's remained down-to-earth and true to herself, while still somehow managing to be fabulous. More than anything, we love Emilia for bringing a strong female character to life and offering a visual representation of a real boss b*tch. Through her famous role, Emilia has shown women all over the world that they don't need to wait for a man to come and save them. Instead, they can build their own armies and conquer the world! Here are 15 reasons we've got a total girl crush on this actress.

15 Her Attitude Is Infectious

A bad attitude is a really quick way to spoil your reputation, but thankfully, Emilia Clarke is as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside! If you've ever watched one of her interviews, you'll know that she's a very positive person, who always looks on the bright side of things. In the past, she's said that she deals with the negativity that comes with her job by simply ignoring the gossip, which happens to be fantastic advice for us all! She has said, “… I don't really look at stuff online. At the start I was looking and found something which wasn't very nice, so now I leave it all. It's best to take it as it comes and work as hard as you can, and hopefully the other things fall into place.” Clearly, she's also a fan of just letting things be. We are more than okay with Zen celebs!

14 She's A Master At Accents

Okay, so we know that we should be judging people based on more than whether or not they can pull off a Valley accent, but Emilia Clarke's accent repertoire is too brilliant to overlook. On Jimmy Kimmel Live, Emilia performed her best “Cali from the Valley” accent, and it was good enough to make us think that she's secretly not British at all, and was actually born and raised in California. That would make her still fantastic at accents since her British rogue would be put on! She also does a great regular American accent, as seen in a few of her movies, and can give other actors and actresses a run for their money when it comes to speaking like a true Rastafarian! For Red Nose Day, Emilia sang “Rastafarian Targaryen” as part of Coldplay's “Game of Thrones: The Musical”. So there you go-the girl is talented and can get behind a charity!

13 She Had To Work Her Way To The Top

She might be on top of the world today (both in the GOT universe and in ours), but Emilia Clarke had to work her way up from the bottom. Nobody can control what circumstances they're born into, and we can't blame somebody for being born with a few extra blessings, but we do have even more respect for those who have to work their butts off! While Emilia was on the way up, she had to take on a number of jobs that she wasn't really passionate about, just to pay the rent. Anybody relate to that? She once worked in a call center, where her job was to upsell different charities to people on the phone. Unsurprisingly, she was continuously abused by the people she rang and hated the job so much that she quit after four shifts. We guess it made her more motivated to work harder to achieve her dreams!

12 She's Beautiful

This definitely isn't the only thing we love about Emilia Clarke, but we can't deny that the girl is a stunner! In 2014, the AskMen readers voted her as the most desirable woman in the world. In the past, she's also been named Esquire's Sexiest Woman Alive. With those dazzling blue eyes, it isn't hard to see that Emilia was blessed with some great genetics. But more importantly, she radiates confidence and kindness, and at the risk of sounding totally cheesy, that's what really makes her beautiful. It's true-she's the type of person that other people love being around because she makes them happy with her attitude and energy. She also manages to be confident without being arrogant, which can be tricky. She is comfortable with herself and accepts who she is, without believing she's better than everybody else. There is seriously nothing more beautiful than a personality like that!

11 She Was In 'Me Before You'

Can we just have a really quick conversation about Me Before You? The last time we cried that much in a movie was when Jack slipped into the ocean at the end of Titanic, and our lives are truly different after seeing it. Based on the Jojo Moyes novel, this film is about a down-to-earth small-town girl who falls in love with a recently paralyzed man. We don't want to spoil things so you'll need to watch it, but we're going to go right ahead and say that it wouldn't be the same without Emilia as the hilarious Lou. This character actually makes a depressing and hopeless world bright and exciting again. Not only do we love Emilia for being involved in this amazing film, which taught us to appreciate the basic abilities we take for granted, but she's also stated that she is actually like the character of Lou IRL.

10 Her Fashion Is Inspiring

Emilia Clarke's sense of fashion is also largely underrated. Each and every time she gets onto that red carpet, she slays more than Khaleesi leading an army back to Westeros! In the past, she's been spotted wearing Calvin Klein Collection, Chanel, and Valentino Couture, and while we appreciate the deeper sides to her, we also appreciate this side that has us millennials screaming “GOALS!” when we see her. She can pull off a wide selection of looks, from the classic to the innovative, and one of our favorites was the red Ralph Lauren she wore to the MET Gala in 2013. We also don't mind seeing Emilia in black, and the black Valentino she wore to the 2016 Golden Globes was easily one of the best looks of the night. She has shown girls all over the world that you can be below 5”2 and still rock a gown like nobody's business!

9 She Supports Other Women

The hallmark sign of a woman who's comfortable in her own skin is when she supports other women rather than feeling threatened because of her own insecurities. Emilia Clarke is definitely this kind of girl and is always saying lovely things about other women she knows in the industry, and those she's a fan of. One of the best examples of this is when she met Channing Tatum and his wife. Since she had always had a crush on Channing, Emilia might have been jealous of his wife if she were perhaps a little less confident. But rather than letting her ego get in the way, Emilia was totally friendly! “Someone took a fantasy in my head and played it in real life,” she said. “I was at a Golden Globes after-party and Channing F***ing Tatum came up to me, and his stunning miss', Jenna.” Women need to call each other stunning more often!

8 She Embraces Challenges

One thing Emilia Clarke doesn't do is run away when things get tough. She is all about taking on challenges and defeating obstacles to get to where she wants to be, and we think this makes her a great role model! One of the biggest recent challenges she was faced with was the role of Sarah Connor in Terminator: Genisys. Although you'd think Emilia would easily handle any kind of action after being the Mother of Dragons, this role actually took a lot out of her! She had to hold weapons that made acting very hard, but she totally fronted up! “It was, like, 70 pounds,” she said of holding one of the weapons. “It was so heavy, and they were like, 'Here you go, Emilia. Now run up that slight hill firing it.'” Wanting to do the role justice and impress the rest of the cast, Emilia kicked butt on set!

7 She Holds On To Her Values

It must be easy to crumble beneath pressure when you're one of the most famous stars in the world. You have people coming from every direction telling you what to do, and it is probably hard to remember your own morals and values. No matter how difficult it is, Emilia doesn't negotiate her beliefs or her true self for anything! She proved this when she turned down the role of Anastasia Steele in Fifty Shades of Grey. She doesn't have a problem with nudity per se, but since she's done so much of it on TV already, she didn't want to suffer the consequences of doing too much. “… I'll never say, 'I'm never doing nudity' because I've already done it, but I thought I might get stuck in a pigeonhole that I would have struggled to get out of,” she told Marie Claire of her decision. Way to stick to your guns, girl!

6 She Stands Up For Herself And Her Show

Emilia Clarke certainly isn't the type to let people push her around, and you better not try to put down her work in front of her. She's highly protective of Game of Thrones, which shows that she's a loyal, passionate person who will stick up for what she loves. She has stated in the past that the show could do with a bit more male nudity so it isn't just a spectacle of naked women for the pleasure of men only, but she still defends it against accusations that it's anti-feminist. “There are women… who have zero rights, women who are queens but only to a man, and then there are women who are literally unstoppable and as powerful as you can possibly imagine,” she said. “So it pains me to hear people taking Thrones out of context with anti-feminist spin-because you can't do that about this show.” That's telling them!

5 She's Lovely

One of the biggest elements that makes Emilia Clarke our girl crush is the fact that she's genuinely a great person. That seems like it should be a given thing, but it isn't really in Hollywood! Emilia is well-known for being a kind and hospitable person on set, and often brings food and other bits and pieces to the GOT set, you know, to cheer people up after they've had to act out being brutally murdered. She recently starred in a stage version of Breakfast at Tiffany's, and she impressed the rest of the cast with her huge heart. “Everyone keeps calling me the Jewish mum, because I keep trying to feed everyone,” she told vulture.com. “I'm loaded like a pack horse full of treats every day, but I think they're appreciated, you know? It's nice to do stuff for people when everyone's stressed out.” It's official: the world needs more Emilia Clarkes ASAP.

4 She's Not Typecast

Emilia Clarke is so phenomenal that we've come this far down the list and have barely touched on her acting talent! She might be most famous for her role as Khaleesi, but she's played plenty of other roles which highlight how much talent she truly has, and how diverse her range is. In perhaps the biggest variation from her butt-kicking role on GOT, Emilia portrayed Holly Golightly in a stage adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany's. Traditionally associated with Audrey Hepburn, this character must have been pretty tough to pull off, especially when you consider that Emilia was on stage rather than on set. She also had to play a different kind of hero than her usual Mother of Dragons in Terminator where she brought Sarah Connor to life, and has likewise portrayed the bubbly, ordinary and funny girl in Me Before You. The answer is no, there is nothing this girl can't do.

3 She Encourages Body Acceptance

We could always do with some more Hollywood idols who encourage young girls to love their bodies just the way they are! Emilia was once asked to give some advice to her 18-year-old self in a Teen Vogue video, and this is what she said: “… You are not as fat as you think you are. There are some women who look some ways, and there are other women who look another way. Like a whole other way. And the way that the other women look, people love. Because they look like women.” Isn't that beautiful? Emilia is very proud of her body, saying of her nudity scenes that she is “all proud” and “all strong”. It's so refreshing to have a star embracing her body rather than slicing it up and sending young girls the message that natural flaws are something to be eliminated rather than embraced. Instead, Emilia celebrates being who you are!

2 She Laughs At Herself

We love anybody who doesn't take themselves too seriously, and Emilia Clarke is no exception. She laughs at everything, including Kristin Wiig's portrayal of Khaleesi, and even resorts to being funny in totally serious moments. In her original GOT audition, she actually ended up doing the funky chicken dance. This is because the director jokingly told her to do a dance when she asked if there was anything else she could do, but still-she actually did it! And may we just say that if you haven't had the pleasure of listening to her laugh, go and do that immediately. She has one of the loudest and most chipper laughs we've ever heard, and it makes us love her even more! Unlike a lot of other stars, Emilia is more than happy to be photographed in a funny pose or a less than flattering position if it's going to earn her a few laughs.

1 She Brought Us Khaleesi

Our absolute favorite thing about Emilia Clarke is that she actually brought the character of Daenerys Targaryen to life. Not only has she changed all of our lives by providing an unlimited amount of entertainment, but she's also changed the landscape when it comes to female characters in pop culture. Dany is really a one-of-a-kind character-she can touch fire, control dragons, and has the will to conquer armies and have thousands of people bow down to her. The Mother of Dragons has been met with prejudice and violence by men on the show, the same way strong women are in real life, but these guys usually end up burnt to a crisp. That right there is a message we're happy for people to receive! Khaleesi is also one of the most (if not the most) popular characters on the show, and brings a whole new meaning to female role model!