Does Emilia Clarke Speak Russian in Real Life Like Her PONIES Character?
Find out how Emilia Clarke learned Russian for the Moscow-based Peacock spy show.
Those watching Peacock's new Cold War-era espionage series PONIES might be surprised to hear star Emilia Clarke speaking Russian as if she's been doing it her whole life.
She plays Bea in the 1977 Moscow-set thriller that's streaming on Peacock now, who is told early on in the show that her CIA operative husband has been killed in a plane crash. Bea initially comes home to the U.S. after being widowed. But she then returns to Moscow along with Twila (Haley Lu Richardson), whose husband was also on the plane, when they decide they want to get to the bottom of what happened to their husbands.
RELATED: The Cast and Characters of Peacock's Spy Show PONIES, Explained
They manage to persuade the CIA to let them work as spies to get valuable intel, arguing that no one would suspect women. Bea is an asset because she studied Russian and is also the Russian-speaking child of Soviet immigrants. The character uses Russian to speak with KGB officers and others, as she tries to convince them she's from the Soviet Union.
Clarke's delivery of her lines in Russian are pretty convincing to English-speaking viewers of PONIES. So, has Clarke, the London-born actress who rose to fame on Game of Thrones, been speaking Russian her whole life? Keep reading to find out.
Does Emilia Clarke speak Russian in real life?
Clarke did not know any Russian before being cast in Peacock's PONIES. “I had to learn Russian, the lines in Russian," she said during a January 12, 2026 Late Night with Seth Meyers appearance. "I do not speak fluent Russian."
RELATED: Two Exciting New Star-Studded Spy Thrillers are Streaming on Peacock in January of 2026
How did Emilia Clarke learn Russian for Peacock's PONIES?
Clarke worked with a couple of teachers to learn Russian for the spy show. But things didn't go so great with the first teacher.
Emilia Clarke says one of her Russian teachers "made me cry"
"I had one teacher and she made me cry," Clarke spilled to Seth Meyers on his talk show. "And I sucked and she just kept saying the same words over and over again. And I kept repeating them and I felt like I had a good ear and I felt like I knew what I was saying. And then she would say them back and I’d be like, ‘That’s what I’m saying.’ And she’s like, ‘No, you’re not!’ And then it would be very upsetting.”
Meyers responded with, "That doesn’t sound good at all."
And Clarke admitted, "No, it was horrible. That was not good."
The actress explained that the PONIES showrunners offered her the chance to change teachers, but she insisted on seeing it through with the original teacher. Thankfully, it was out of her hands.
"And then he gave me a new teacher and then everything was better," Clarke said.
Meyers joked, “So, this isn’t that you’re bad at Russian, it’s that you had a terrible teacher," to which Clarke replied, "That’s my story. That’s what we’re sticking with."
Emilia Clarke learned Dothraki and High Valyrian for Game of Thrones
Of course, PONIES isn't the first TV show that Clarke has had to learn a new language for. On Game of Thrones, her Daenerys Targaryen spoke the fictional languages of Dothraki and High Valyrian.
"I put so much energy into learning Dothraki and then we did the show, and then we moved on to Valyrian, and then we moved on to High Valyrian," Clarke explained to Meyers. "All that stuff — and then I feel like she ended up speaking English. But, the creator of the language — I read in an article — said that I sucked at Dothraki. And I was like, ‘What?!’”
Meyers joked, “You’re like, ‘I’m the only one doing it, bro!'"
As Clarke said of Dothraki, “It’s not a real language! I can’t suck at it because, me saying it on the TV, that’s how it goes. That’s the language!"
To see Clarke speaking Russian as Bea on PONIES, watch the spy series, now streaming in full on Peacock.
