From fantasy to real life, Game of Thrones and Secret Invasion actress Emilia Clarke has just landed her next role as the leading character in Sophie Hyde’s An Ideal Wife. The feature will see Clarke in the titular role as Constance Lloyd, the real-life wife of Irish children’s author Oscar Wilde. An activist and scribe in her own right, the feature will focus on Lloyd’s marriage to Wilde, told from her perspective following the discovery that her husband was gay. In a similar wheelhouse as Hyde’s recent steamy comedy-drama, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, the film will center around Lloyd’s sexual awakening following the life-changing news.
Together, Wilde and Lloyd shared two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan. Wilde was an absent parent which in turn led Lloyd to become a single mother. The couple never divorced, but following Wilde’s 1895 imprisonment for homosexual acts, Llyod took her sons from London to Switzerland and changed their last names to Holland in order to avoid further attachment to the scandal. An accomplished writer, Lloyd published two children’s books and would serve as a contributor to newspapers and journals. In her role as an activist, she was a firm believer and campaigner for the progressive dress reform movement. Lloyd died in 1898 at the age of 40 while living in Genoa, Italy with both sons.
Best known for her role as Daenerys Targaryn on HBO’s Game of Thrones, the actress has been mostly absent from both the small and big screens since the show’s wrap back in 2019. That same year, she would appear in Paul Feig’s holiday romance, Last Christmas, before taking a hiatus from the world of Hollywood. But, she’s now back in full force as along with An Ideal Wife, Clarke has several other projects up her sleeve.
On the feature side of things, she’ll be lending her voice to Toby Genkel and Florian Westermann’s animated film, Amazing Maurice, and will be seen in live-action roles in both Sophie Barthes’ sci-fi rom-com Pod Generation and the Václav Marhoul helmed political biopic, McCarthy. Marvel fans are preparing to welcome Clarke into the fold with her upcoming role in the highly anticipated MCU and Disney+ series, Secret Invasion. She’ll be joining a cast that includes Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Cobie Smulders, Olivia Coleman, and Don Cheadle in the top-secret project set to drop sometime in 2023.
As of right now, An Ideal Wife has not set a release date, but stay tuned for more information. You can check out a trailer for Secret Invasion below.