Emilia Clarke insists there's no pay gap problem on Game of Thrones

Emilia Clarke has said that the gender pay gap didn't affect her role as  Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones, despite the fact that she was also a relative unknown. 

"On Game of Thrones, I have always been paid the same amount as my male co-stars," she said last night at a screening of Solo: A Star Wars Story in Cannes.

"It was my first job and I was not discriminated against because I was a woman, in my paycheck."

Clarke noted that her experience was unusual and slammed recent revelations about Claire Foy's pay for The Crown as  "shocking, actually shocking."

"You start to dig deep and see where it is, rife in the industry. So I think it’s mainly in the beginning, just be aware of that and going, ‘Can you just check?'" she said about negotiating pay. "You just start to fight harder for that stuff. It's really difficult because this is a problem that has been around forever so changing it overnight is impossible."

The 31-year-old, who plays Qi’ra,  a childhood friend of Han Solo in the new film, said she was bored of being asked how it felt to play strong female roles: "You think a lead in a movie is going to be a weak woman? Enough already with the strong women, please let's just be women."

Solo: A Star Wars Story will be released in UK cinemas on May 24