Mad about Milly

Words by GRACE O’NEILL; Photographed by BRYAN LISTON; Styled by CATHY KASTERINE

SOMETIMES those huge, life-altering moments arrive with a bang — big, bright and brilliant. But more often than not they’re quiet and understated, and only in retrospect can you appreciate just how significant they were. For Milly Alcock, the biggest moment of her career fell in the latter camp. “I was at my friend’s house cooking dinner when I got the call,” she says. “I went outside and silently screamed, then came back inside and asked my friend if he had a bottle of wine. And we drank wine. And that was about it.” It was the call a thousand actors would have killed for: the lead role in House of the Dragon, HBO’s ludicrously anticipated Game of Thrones prequel. The 10-episode series had a budget of about $US200 million and would see Alcock star alongside British acting heavyweights Rhys Ifans, Paddy Considine and The Crown’s Matt Smith. The 22-year-old Sydney-born Alcock not only held her own as the young Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen (think of her as Khaleesi, half a millennia beforehand), she shimmered off the screen like a white-haired supernova.

I imagine the casting process for a project of that scale required a marathon-like endurance — flights across the world, several terrifying auditions. Turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong. “It was actually the quickest audition process I’ve ever done to book a job,” Alcock says. We’re speaking in London, where she is now based, in an airy studio in the city’s trendy East. As we break for lunch, the petite starlet slips out of new-season Celine, Miu Miu and Chanel, and into a quintessentially Aussie-in-London look: big men’s shirt over a tee over a long-sleeved thermal (“Whatever I wear here it’s never warm enough,” Alcock says with a laugh). As it turns out, the process of landing one of the most coveted roles on TV was shockingly low-key. This was in part because casting happened in 2020, when in-person auditions weren’t possible. Alcock sent in two self-tapes and got the call a few weeks later. No follow-up interviews, no terrifying interrogations with executives, just a straight up “Yes”. “I think that’s what made the whole process really frightening, because in some ways I felt like I hadn’t earned it,” she adds.

The news was so casual that, at first, it hardly affected Alcock’s day-to-day life. Sworn to secrecy, she kept her job working part-time at a cafe in Sydney’s Marrickville until shooting began. “I was literally washing dishes every day,” she says, laughing. “Nobody knew!” Shooting was scheduled for early 2021 and Alcock, then only 20, moved to London during the height of pandemic lockdowns. As a fellow Australian who relocated to the British capital during the pandemic, I can attest that 2020 was a truly awful time to be living in the city. Alcock nods in recognition, although her anxieties were slightly different to mine. “I didn’t know anyone, and I’d never lived out of home for that long, and I was about to film what was potentially the biggest TV show ever. So yeah, it was a headfuck.”

Based on George R. R. Martin’s 2018 book, Fire & Blood, House of the Dragon is a decades-spanning saga centred on the Targaryen dynasty, 500 years before Game of Thrones is set. Rhaenyra is the feisty-but-brilliant teenage daughter of King Viserys I (Considine) who, having no living sons, must decide whether to abandon tradition and name his daughter as heir. Add to the mix a power-hungry uncle (Smith, with whom Rhaenyra has a suitably Thrones-style brooding sexual tension), a Machiavellian advisor with the ear of the king (Ifans), and a best-friend-turned-frenemy (played first by Emily Carey and then by Olivia Cooke), and you have the makings for a seasons-spanning spectacle of epic proportions.

Preparation for the role was gruelling. Alcock spent hours a day learning to ride horseback (“I’m a horse girlie now,” she jokes) and worked with multiple dialect coaches to master her High Valyrian, a Targaryen language invented by Martin. As the series’ name suggests, she also had to learn to ride dragons — albeit a mechanical creation in HBO’s green screened studio. Filming took months. “I put a lot of pressure on myself,” she admits. “It was this feeling of all your dreams having come true, but now you’ve actually got to do the thing. Which is really scary. Because if it doesn’t work there’s no-one else to blame but yourself.”

Alcock grew up in Petersham in Sydney’s inner west with her mum, dad and two brothers, in what she describes as a decidedly non-arty family. “The arts felt like something that was just mine, that I had ownership over,” she says. “I really held onto that as a sense of independence and something I could call my own, I was very protective about it.” Acting, as she puts it, was the only thing she was good at. So good, in fact, that she was accepted into the prestigious Newtown High School of the Performing Arts, whose alumni includes Yael Stone and Odessa Young. “I arrived and all my classmates already had agents,” Alcock recalls. “So I started googling agencies and calling them saying, ‘Hi, can you hire me?’ Eventually one did.” She caveats: “I think I was literally about 13 at the time.”

Alcock began taking on small jobs: a Cadbury ad here, a stint on Australia’s Disney Channel there. Her first credited role was in the 2017 web series High Life. From there she nabbed parts in 2018’s Showcase drama Fighting Season and the Netflix series Pine Gap. It was around this time that she was cast by Phoebe Tonkin in the actor’s directorial debut, a short film called Furlough. “Milly and I met in a coffee shop in Newtown and I was instantly captivated by her confidence and charm,” Tonkin says. “Directing for the first time was a very vulnerable experience, but Milly brought so much power and strength on screen that I ended up with an 18-minute short instead of the usual 15 minutes because I couldn’t bear to cut out any of her beautiful performance.”

Alcock’s first big break came in 2019, when she landed the lead alongside Tim Minchin in his Foxtel comedy series, Upright. Alcock plays Meg, a teen runaway who gets roped into helping a struggling musician (Minchin) transport an upright piano across 3000 kilometres of Australian outback. Taking on the role meant dropping out of high school, a decision that was to Alcock “kind of a no brainer”. She expected to be met with resistance from her teachers or parents, but both were nonplussed. “I told my mum and she just said, ‘Sure,’” she recalls with a shrug. And her school could hardly ask her to turn down an opportunity to work with one of Australia’s greatest creative talents. “Working with Tim gave me a very clear understanding that when you’re on set, you’re there to do a job,” Alcock says with a clear reverence for her old boss. “You need to serve the story and speak up when you have an idea, don’t be scared. I think he taught me to trust myself in a way that I’ve taken into every role since.”

Alcock wrapped House of the Dragon in late 2021 and flew straight back to Australia to start filming Upright’s second season. It gave her less time to brood on what might be coming, but the feeling that her life was about to change never really went away. “It felt like I was sitting on a time bomb,” she says. “You’re constantly waiting for the ball to drop.” When it eventually did drop this past August, it dropped hard. The first five episodes of House of the Dragon boasted 29 million viewers apiece, which marked the largest audience for a television series debut in American cable history. Alcock’s face was plastered across train stations and billboards around the world, including her local Tube station. She started being recognised on the street, and her Instagram following jumped from a few thousand to 1.5 million in a matter of weeks.

Then there was the gruelling global press tour, followed quickly by the awards season circuit. The series picked up nominations at the Critics’ Choice Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards and Golden Globes. Emma D’Arcy (of “negroni sbagliato” fame), who (*minor spoiler) plays Rhaenyra a decade on, was nominated for Best Television Actress in a Drama Series at the latter. “It’s been an interesting experience in terms of how people treat you,” Alcock says. “There was this feeling of All eyes on me for a moment. I was meeting people I admired at events and having people compliment me on my work. But at the same time, I tried to disassociate myself from it. I never searched reviews or read or watched my interviews back, because I think that would be very bad for my mental health.”

In this way, Alcock is the archetype of a new kind of celebrity. Yes, her life changed overnight. But she still lives in a share house with a group of creative friends (including the model and photographer Anaïs Gallagher). She still freaks out when she’s in-between jobs (she’s waiting to start filming a new, as yet unannounced project, in September). She still wonders if she should go back to part time work at a cafe. In the months before House of the Dragon came out she contemplated dropping her resume into Violet, the much-loved Dalston bakery, to pick up a part-time job before starting the press circuit.

And yet to call Alcock normal or unaffected would feel trite. It’s better to think of her as a person with an unusually healthy (or, perhaps, uniquely gen Z) sense of perspective. Sure, getting cast in a critically acclaimed show loved by millions of people is great — but you’re still the same person on the other side of it. “The goal for me with acting has never been to be famous, or to be a movie star,” Alcock says. “I think that’s emotionally taxing. It’s not what I strive for at all.” Still, there’s no denying this is where she currently finds herself. How does she think about the future? “Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great problem to have,” she says. “I’ve been looking at other people’s careers that I admire, and the way they’ve handled it. And I’m thinking about who I want to be in that public eye space, which is a space I don’t want to be in a lot.”

It strikes me, not for the first time, that Alcock is wise and sensitive well beyond her years. Whether she likes it or not, life in the public eye feels all but inevitable. But when our shoot wraps and Alcock disappears into the blissful anonymity of London during peak hour, I feel quietly assured that she’s better equipped than most to handle it.

Source: harpersbazaar.com.au

Everything You Need To Know About ‘House Of The Dragon’ Star Milly Alcock
The Aussie actor enters the dragon’s den.

After a near flawless run, fantasy series Game of Thrones ended with a whimper. Thankfully, the new prequel, House of the Dragon shows serious promise – as does its Aussie star Milly Alcock.

Violence? Check. Sex scenes? Check. A brutal and shocking death in episode one? Check, check, check. House of the Dragon wastes no time reminding viewers why the world couldn’t stop talking about Game of Thrones until its final season three years ago.

The prequel is set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones and tells the story of House Targaryen (as in Daenerys Targaryen). While whispers of returning cast members have yet to be confirmed, there are plenty of fresh faces, including 22-year-old Alcock.

“I was at a friend’s house when I found out I got the part. I couldn’t tell anyone, so I just silently screamed, hung up the phone and looked my friend in the eye and asked “do you have any wine?,” recalls Alcock, who previously starred alongside Tim Minchnin’s Upright and A Place to Call Home.

Alcock will take the iron throne as a young Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen. So what do viewers need to know about the woman beneath the crown? “That I’ve been picked up and dropped into the lion’s den and I don’t know what I’m doing,” Alcock says.

If you missed the original series (how?!), you’re in luck. Alcock explains, “it’s a completely new story so it opens up a big audience, because everybody can watch it with fresh eyes. I hadn’t actually watched the original series until we started shooting. I can see why there’s such a large fan base around it, it’s brilliant.”

While the new series does take a new stylistic and thematic direction with its exploration of characters and relationships, long-time fans can expect the same meticulous detail that stays true to the original series.

“The attention to detail is insane,” Alcock says. “Our costume designer Jany [Temime] did an incredible job at including dragon detailing in my costume such as scaling. Jenny was very smart at thinking ‘how am I going to include this family’s sigil and plant that seed of ‘we are House Targaryen’. The clothing that we wear is also very restrictive, which actually helps get you into the character and the restricted within the world that she lives in. Although, I will admit with all the live fire and heavy costumes, it got really hot during filming, and I’m a sweater so I often had to go and stand in front of the fans with my arms up.”

“I can see parallels in the dynamics of the relationships. I recognise the relationship between mother and daughter with my own mother, and between two young women and how that friendship deteriorates. I can definitely relate,” says Alcock. “That said, I’ve never ridden a dragon!”

Despite filming taking place miles from home, the 22-year-old from Sydney was still eager to bring a slice of home to the set. “We went to the seaside in Cornwall [in England] before rehearsal, and I decided I wanted to go for a swim. Everyone said, ‘you don’t have time,’ but I did it anyway. I felt so Australian. It was 15 degrees in the water and I was just in my undies, because I didn’t have any swimmers. It reminded me of home.”

After ruling a kingdom and securing herself a place on the iron throne, you’d forgive the young star for wanting to settle into an early retirement. Instead, Alcock has a few projects she’d like to get under her belt.

“I really want to play a boxer or a musician. I’m jealous of musicians and the power that they have onstage and their ability to captivate an audience with their voice. I’d also love to do a play.”

Source: marieclaire.com.au

Since dropping out of high school to pursue a full-time acting career, Milly Alcock’s trajectory has been nothing short of magical. Within five years, her onscreen CV has grown to include appearances on Janet King, Fighting Season, The Gloaming and more recently a co-starring role as the young Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen in House of the Dragon, the hotly anticipated film adaption of George R. R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, which is also the prequel to the cult classic, Game of Thrones. As much of a bonafide breakout role as this is, Milly truly ascended the echelons of film and television with her co-starring role in the award-winning Foxtel drama, Upright, alongside renowned composer/writer/ comedian Tim Minchin.

In Upright, Alcock portrays the frustrated, swear-word-slinging misfit “Meg,” who is easily misunderstood as she grapples with her complicated pile of emotions. What Meg lacks in eloquence, the character of Princess Rhaenyra compensates for in articulacy and guile. Both women are equally as emotionally intelligent as they are stubborn-willed, yet their dispositions are disappointed by the authoritative male figures around them. The antics with which each navigates her battle-of-the-sexes power play are what makes both shows irresistibly binge-worthy.

On the hottest recorded day in the UK’s history, Milly put her fan on high blast so she could shoot the breeze with Schön! about purposefully losing herself in the grandeur of onset wardrobe and makeup, the need for greater Aussie representation in mainstream film/television, and more.

We’re chatting on a historic day— it’s the hottest recorded day in British history!

I don’t know Fahrenheit, but right now it’s 38 degrees celsius—I came here to escape the heat, not be re-introduced to the heat…But I’m sitting in front of a fan, sorry if it’s noisy.

That’s perfectly fine. You can go get a bowl of cold ice cream if it helps because you are in the heat of the day…What time is it in London?

It’s 12:45 pm.

Wow, you are in the heat of the day, on the hottest recorded day.

But here we are. We made it.

And to the same hot party. [Laughter]. It’s especially exciting to chat with you because I first became familiar with you as “Meg” in Upright— you gave a phenomenal performance.

Thank you, it’s lovely to hear that.

It’s true, I mean, you keep it coming, from Upright to this new Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon. But speaking of Upright, I heard that you all are filming Season 2 of the show right now—

We just finished it. So I came home, finished Thrones, and went straight into Season 2 of Upright.

If you could give a 30-second elevator pitch of the premise for Upright, Season 2, how would you give it?

We revisit Meg and Lucky’s weird and wonderful adventures, and they get a lot more weird and kooky characters along the way. It’ll make you laugh, it’ll make you cry, but ultimately there’s a beautiful bow tie between the story…The chapter closes there for everyone.

Tim Minchin— your co-star as “Lucky”, and also the show’s writer— describes Meg as “guttural and sweary”, which stuck with me, and made me more curious about how you would describe your character, in your own words.

Meg knows when she has to do the “wrong thing” to do the “right thing”. And she’s extremely empathetic, and extremely emotionally intelligent, which usually gets mistaken for being “guttural and sweaty”. But she knows people, she just doesn’t know how to express it most articulately because of her background.

The two leads— Lucky and Meg— are both misfits of their worlds, drawn together with the beautiful bow tie around their relationship, as you said. Misfits in mind, I read that you dropped out of high school— because it wasn’t your thing— to pursue your acting career. Were you somewhat of a misfit in high school?

I wasn’t a “misfit”, but I did relate to Meg’s feeling about her place in the world— feeling a bit misunderstood, and finding it hard to grasp things that other people found quite easy. I wasn’t a misfit; I always struggled in school, and I repeated a year. So school wasn’t for me because, like Meg, I didn’t know how to communicate what I was trying to get across. I struggled with that. So, a misfit in spirit, but not in practice.

One thing I noticed in Upright is that the desert and the piano are as much a part of the plot as Meg and Lucky’s dynamic. In real life, I believe the desert has a way of upheaving whatever is bubbling beneath the surface within, or in a dynamic. That said, how do you believe the backdrop of the desert enhances the dynamism of Meg and Lucky’s relationship?

I think that the landscape in general is a very key component in our story because it’s an Australian story. And in mainstream media, I never hear my accent on screen, and I never see an Australian story being told, internationally. So think that we utilized the Australian landscape to bring in an international audience, and show that this is what we have to offer as Australians. And Season 2 reflects the landscape that we’re in far north of Queensland, so it’s a completely different landscape— a more tropical landscape. So I think that’s why it’s a key component within the story—because it’s home.

That’s funny you say that, because now when I think about it, I can’t remember the last time I watched a distinctly Australian film or tv series.

You don’t, and that’s the thing— we’ve got great actors and great films, but that’s what’s heartbreaking as an Australian within the industry. The lack of international reach is missing, out feels, at times.

Would you say that you get more roles where you have to put on an American English accent, over quality roles for you as an Australian actress within an Australian production?

I would say that recently there has been an influx in auditioning for international roles where I play an American or a British person, but that’s only because of the path that I decided to take in my career, to make it more international. I don’t live in Australia anymore, so I’m not auditioning for Australian stuff as much, but that’s not to say that there are not quality Aussie projects happening at the moment.

So where are you based, full-time?

In London.

Which part?

East London.

Back to Meg, though. She’s a bit of a feisty female character. From your representation of her, what voice do you feel she gives to women of this generation?

In a metaphorical sense, or a literal sense?

Both.

Meg’s voice is just a voice. But because she’s a woman, there’s this added pressure to overachieve and do better than the man, because that is the standard. So ultimately, she combats, or utilizes her feminine rage through swearing and being provocative so that she has the attention of Lucky, who is this middle-upper class man. So she has to accentuate her emotional state to get his attention and to get him to listen to her because if she just talked normally, he wouldn’t listen to her…as most women feel.

So she’s not as extreme, or feisty as she seems, she’s just acting out to get attention?

Yeah, she’s trying to get heard in the room.

I notice she [Meg] and Lucky have a playful kind of tug-of-war of power play between the two of them, very much like a bossy big brother, annoying little sister kind of thing. What’s your real-life rapport with Tim Minchin?

The real-life rapport between Tim and I was one of mutual understanding’s creative integrity. Tim and I very much leaned on each other over the shoot [filming] as we were faced with many challenges along the way so it was reassuring to have him by my side.

Let’s talk about House of the Dragon, which just premiered. What can we expect in this instalment that we didn’t get in Game of Thrones?

Well, it’s a different show. I think Game of Thrones fans are expecting a similar tone, feeling and pace to the original. But ultimately, Ryan and Miguel [Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik, the show’s producers] focused on establishing a new aesthetic within the show to distinguish itself from the mother show. So ultimately, the audience can expect…everything. Because they haven’t seen any of it yet.

One thing I’m curious about is how you handle the proximity in the filming schedule: you filmed Upright, then soon after House of the Dragon, then shortly after that, Season 2 of Upright. Do you find yourself— unwittingly— bleeding aspects of Meg into Princess Rhaenyra, or injecting the regality of Princess Rhaenyra into Meg?

I think that ultimately when you invest so many hours into being a person— you spend more hours being them than you do being yourself— ultimately, the physicality and intonation and the way you move, and carry yourself, and think [as the role] bleeds into you and your everyday life…I’ve carried all of those women with me and unwittingly bled similar aspects, but it’s never intentional…It’s habitual, your body recognizes it.

Can you think of a specific time when you did that?

No—I’ve never specifically done that…That’s the thing, you carry them [the characters] with you, and then you don’t realize that that’s them.

There are moments when you’ve acted as these characters and then afterward realized that you were bleeding those behaviours— unwittingly— in real life. I’m not an actress, but there have been recent series that I’ve watched where I find myself unwittingly emulating certain ticks of the protagonist that I’ve been binge-watching.

Hmmm. It would be more so in a day-to-day sense since I spend more time being these people than I do being me…I am so focused on what’s going on and being truthful to the person I’m playing…Like, I’d find myself standing at the bus stop like Rhaenyra and I’m like, “Oh my God, stop! Put your hands by your side. What are you doing?”. [Laughter]. Or you find yourself standing like a different person, or your voice changes when emotion gets triggered in you in your day-to-day life because you’re so used to access that when you’re working… But never on screen; only in my real life, occasionally.

Did you read Fire and Blood since it’s the inspiration behind House of the Dragon?

Yes. I read parts of Fire and Blood because it’s massive. It’s a historical retelling, so it’s not like a nonfiction book, in a weird way.

And you read it before, or after filming?

Before— I mean, it wouldn’t serve me to read the book if I read it after filming the show.

I watched interviews, and several of your co-stars waited till after the show. I find it common that actors wait till after the filming to read the literary inspiration because they don’t want it to influence their intuitive interpretation.

I know, but everybody’s different, and you’ve got to respect everybody’s processes.

This is true…And I don’t want any of your costars to think I’m coming for them when I said that. [Laughter]. Let’s talk about costumes for the show. Matt Smith— your co-star— has discussed the transformative quality that the wigs have on the show. He starred in The Crown— and it’s funny, because I spoke with Tom Bailey, one of the costars of The Crown, and he emphasized how much the wardrobe and opulence of the set decor put him into character and inspired regality in his reenactments. So I’m curious— for you— what role did the hair, makeup, wardrobe and set decor play in getting you into the role of Princess Rhaenyra for House of the Dragon?

[Whistling music in the background]. Sorry, there’s an ice cream truck. [Laughter]. We talked about you getting that ice cream to cool down. [Laughter].

I know! [Laughter]. I can’t wait till he goes…It’s vital to have costumes and decor that allow you to lose yourself within the space. Game of Thrones is a fantasy, and House of The Dragon isn’t the real world. We don’t exist in the confines of earth, so having the sets and being able to interact with the sets, as opposed to a blue screen or something that you couldn’t tangibly see, touch and feel, was beneficial as an actor to be able to fully invest in that. And ultimately, the costumes change the way that you walk and stand. You can compare your costumes to somebody else’s costumes, and class comes into play, and status comes into play, and their ability to move and not move, and what that means. So it [wardrobe] is essential to accessing them [the characters].

You have a dynamic repertoire of roles under your belt, from The Gloaming, to Upright, to House of the Dragon. Is there a “dream role” that you have in mind that you hope to be cast in?

…It’d probably be Hedda Garbler or Eve in All about Eve.

Wow, that’s a great throwback that I never would’ve expected to hear…Apart from promotional work for the shows, do you have any interesting mid-summer plans?

No, I haven’t been in one place for a very long time because I’ve been working. So I’m really happy just settling, and just slowing down in London, and moving into my first flat.

Sounds like you’re chillin’. So what does the rest of your day look like?

The rest of my day…I’m going to go to a fitting for premiere looks and things, which is very exciting. And I’m going to try and stay out of this heat, and not get dehydrated.

Well, as we say in America, “Stay hydrated!”

Yeah. [Laughter]. And you have a lovely rest of your day…And stay hydrated!

Source: schonmagazine.com