Emilia Clarke uses gangster rap to get into character

Emilia Clarke does not go method. To play the dragon-riding, slave-freeing, army- raising, warrior-badass queen Daenerys Targaryen in Game Of Thrones she goes gangster.

"Yes! A lot of gangster rap before Thrones," she says, having met GQ in New York. "So, Tupac. Biggie. But then some Florence." When she was acting opposite Jason Momoa, as horse lord Drogo, she listened to Salt- N-Pepa's "Whatta Man" on loop. "And Beyoncé, obviously. I tried Eminem once, but that was too much. For me it's like, you wake up and think, I'm not feeling particularly badass this morning. Coolio, Biggie, can you help me? When you're doing a huge scene, trying to empower hundreds of extras, you've got to get me a G."

Apart from being a Thrones tie-in album waiting to happen, it does perhaps partly explain how this oh-so-English 28-year-old (smiley, silly, laughs like a maniac, talks like she's on a time limit) became the empowered, ball-busting leading lady Hollywood so sorely lacks. It's no shock she landed summer 2015's plum role (and the godmother of fierce leading ladies everywhere) as Sarah Connor in Terminator Genisys. And it's probably even less of one that she's GQ's Woman Of The Year. "Oh my God, I was so happy when I was told!"

She's arrived, incongruously enough, on crutches.

"I know!" she laughs. "I'm Sarah Connor, super-badass, and I'm hobbling around on these!" She's been having fun making up reasons ("Like, it's from jumping out of a helicopter or really rowdy sex"), but the truth is less exciting. "I run, and it's a stress fracture. I was just not taking care of myself. I've got brittle-bone crap in my family, and I don't eat dairy, so I don't have enough calcium, so..."

Running around her local Hampstead neighbourhood has, until now, never been a problem. As she sports a platinum-blonde wig for Thrones, the natural brunette has been undercover famous back home. Now, plastered over Terminator: Genisys posters from New York to London, not so much.

"Right? It's always been funny going out with Kit [Harington], because he's so recognisable. We went to an FKA Twigs gig and it was mental. I went to the loo and in the cubicle on either side the girls were like, "That's Jon Snow out there! Don't know who that random girl is..."

The last season of Game Of Thrones ended with Harington's Jon Snow unceremoniously shanked by virtually every member of the Night's Watch (ie, his own army). Yet he's kept that oh-so-recognisable Jon Snow barnet, leading to certain rumours...

"Ooh, busted!" squeals Clarke, "and we've got the red lady... but what would she bring him back as? She's got to take something for herself. Let's just say I'm optimistic."

Clarke, the fanboy favourite, remains one of the few seemingly untouchable cast members, not that she reads the rumours, having banned herself from any Thrones-based internet since her early nude scenes in series one.

"There were a number of very public discussions about the size of my derrière," she says, by way of explanation. "One article said it was refreshing to have such a 'healthy-sized' bottom on television. You hear that, and immediately hear, 'I'm fat!' So I just wanted to save myself from any future eating disorders that may emerge. And the comments were the worst! Like, 'I'm gonna tap that big fat ass!' Oh, God!"

However, she has recently joined Instagram. "And you can't help but see the comments! One was just a list of all the sexual acts he wanted to do to me. In text speak."

So what does she put her "strong woman" rep down to? Partly, she says, it's about showing sensitivity as well. "So it's not like, I'm a feminist, I wish I had a dick and everything would be better." But also: gangster rap.