Emilia Clarke Is Esquire's 'Sexiest Woman Alive'

— -- "Game of Thrones" star Emilia Clarke has been named Esquire's "Sexiest Woman Alive," a title previously held by Penelope Cruz, Scarlett Johansson and Halle Berry.

"Half pal, half dominatrix. Half kid sister, half sexy queen. The movie star who plays, in her real life, an anonymous, funny beauty," Benjamin Markovits wrote in the November issue's accompanying article. "This is the gorgeous balance of Emilia Clarke."

The 28-year-old English actress is having quite a year. In addition to her high profile role as Daenerys Targaryen, or Mother of Dragons, in the hit HBO series, she played Sarah Connor in this summer's "Terminator: Genisys," opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jai Courtney. Last month, she was named GQ's "Woman of the Year.”

In the Esquire article, she explained how she got her breakthrough role.

"My agent calls me up and says, 'Did you ever go up for ‘Game of Thrones?'" she recalled. "My agent told the casting director, 'I know that the breakdown for this character is tall and willowy and blonde. I know she's short and round and brown, but I'd like you to see her.' I had two scenes which told me nothing and not very much time in which to read all those [George R. R. Martin] books. So I did what every good actor does and Wikipedia'd the living crap out of it."

She said the show's producers wanted "someone who could grow before your eyes in one season, who could gather strength and show vulnerability, they wanted the arc."

Now, Clarke is trying hard to stay grounded even as her star is rising.

"I'm trying everything I can not to be freaky," she said.