

Now that she’s wrapped on the battle for the seven kingdoms and the dragons require a little less day care, Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke has found the time to focus on her love life. If her romantic Instagram posts are anything to go by, it seems that the actress has been hiding a mystery new boyfriend from the public eye—but of course, GoT fans think they’ve already figured out who he is.
And honestly, it doesn’t take a professional detective to put two and two together. Posting a loved-up message on her birthday on Wednesday, Emilia shared an adorable picture of her shadow kissing another shadow on the beach. It came alongside the sweet caption: “Well that was a birthday I won’t be forgetting in a while” and an all-important heart emoji. Intriguing, huh?
This is where things become much clearer, though. Just hours before, the exact same photo was shared by writer and director Charlie McDowell with the caption "Happy birthday, E", so there’s all the evidence you need that these two are getting pretty serious behind the scenes. So who is exactly is Emilia’s rumored new boyfriend?
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35-year-old McDowell, an American film director, comes from L.A. and is the son of Academy Award winning actress Mary Steenburgen, and A Clockwork Orange star, Malcom McDowell. A pretty great gene pool for anyone working in the movie world, right? Aside from his A-list parents, Charlie is best known for his 2014 movie starring Elisabeth Moss, The One I Love.
McDowell seems to lead a fairly private life and keeps out of the spotlight, but as far as celebrity dating history goes, there are a few well known names in the mix. He is known to have been in a year-long relationship with Kristin Chenoweth in 2008, and he also dated Rooney Mara for six years from 2010 to 2016.
Interestingly, he tweeted the three immortal letters 'GoT' back in September, so either he and Emilia have been keeping things on the DL for quite some time and this was his not-so-subtle way of sharing the news, or he's just a major fangirl for the show.
The rest is still under wraps and will have to wait until the two are pictured together in their non-shadow forms to learn much else. But hey, the idea of Emilia finding a potential moon of her life, her sun and her stars has surely got to slightly cheer up your morning.
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Lucy Wood spends most of her time writing about celebrity news, reading books, and waiting for the glorious day that she have enough millions for a pet sloth. She also has a YouTube channel on the go where she pretends to know things about fashion and life advice.
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