ALL EYES ON YOU

For the past three weeks, Milly Alcock has been winning over the audiences with her nuanced portrayal of young Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen in House of the Dragon – the HBO show which last month made headlines for its record-breaking premiere. For the Australian actress – who prior to getting the part has never seen Game of Thrones, the series that HotD is a prequel to – the biggest surprise was just how straightforward the extravagant show’s arc is. “It’s a story of one family, and how that family has a massive fight which affects the whole kingdom,” says Alcock. “And because they’re in charge, everyone else around them suffers and has an opinion on their actions.” Prior to the show’s big launch, we spoke to Milly about the fascinating nature of Rhaenyra, the euphoria of riding a horse, and wanting to play a valley girl.

House of the Dragon is one of the biggest shows of the year! How did you become a part of this project?

It was a really fast auditioning process. I did a self-tape back in Sydney and the sample scene they gave me was actually from Game of Thrones – I hadn’t seen the show at that point, so I hadn’t actually realized [what I might be auditioning for]. Then, two weeks later, I got a callback, followed by a phone call saying that I got the part two weeks after that. It was just so extremely quick that I didn’t feel like I actually landed the role!

What would you say are the main differences in the storytelling tone between House of the Dragonand Game of Thrones?

I would say that our show is the modern revamp of Game of Thrones – the series has definitely addressed the critiques and didn’t make the same mistakes that the original got scrutinized for, which I think is going to make it more appealing to a wider audience. House of the Dragon explores a broader range of perspectives in terms of themes like sexuality, gender, and race, so it allows everybody to be a part of that world.

Having not seen the original show prior to getting the part, what surprised you the most about this universe?

The fact that despite being very extravagant in its presentation, it’s very simplistic in its themes – it’s a story of one family, and how that family has a massive fight which affects the whole kingdom. And because they’re in charge, everyone else around them suffers and has an opinion on their actions.

In the series, you play Rhaenyra Targaryen – what do you find most fascinating about her as a person?

She is a princess, but she fundamentally doesn’t want to adhere to that role and what she’s expected to do. That’s why she acts out in a lot of ways, and because of her position of privilege, she can get away with a lot more stuff. She comes across as quite arrogant – we meet her when she’s in her early teens, so she’s at that point where she expects the world to owe her something and hasn’t grasped the reality that everybody suffers and that she’s not the only person who’s ever experienced these feelings. She holds a lot of anger in her and we see her work through that anger, but quite publicly, because of her position. But I do really adore her outspokenness and emotional intelligence about people close to her. She’s a lot smarter than she’s made out to be.

What was the wildest skill you got to learn for this role?

I learned how to ride a horse! I’m very grateful that I got to learn that skill – there’s something really fun about horse riding and the freedom that it gives you. Also, I think it helped me tap into Rhaenyra a bit more and tap into her using her dragon – I’m assuming that the feeling of euphoria while riding a horse would be a bit similar to the feeling of riding a dragon, just a thousand times less strong because the dragon would be going so fucking fast! [laughs]

What amazed you the most about the level of production on a series like this?

The craft and attention to detail were insane! For example, with the costumes, everything was handmade and hand-embroidered, so it felt like you were wearing art. Also, just the sheer volume of people that it took to make that job. When you’re working with a 400-person crew every day, it can be quite overwhelming – you can’t help but have the feeling that you’re a part of something that’s larger than you and larger than something you’ll ever be. So there was a bit of pressure within that feeling of ‘all eyes are on you’, but I learned to understand that I had so many people around me whose job was to make sure that I came across the best way that I could in my performance. All of the crew was so incredible – they were so kind and so human, which didn’t feel like it should go together with how big and over-the-top the production was.

Having that incredible experience, what sort of challenges and roles are you hoping to explore now?

I really want to do a play. I think it would be such a great challenge in terms of how you rehearse and the text that you are given, as well as vocally and movement-wise. There’s just something that seems so exciting about that moment of performance living in the space of two hours and being shared exclusively with the audience that’s right in front of you. Also, I would love to do some independent films. I want to play a valley girl…

An A24 valley girl?

Yes! I just want to have fun.

Source: behindtheblinds.be

Get Ready for Milly Alcock’s Reign

In the George R.R. Martin novel A Storm of Swords—the third installment of the A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series that brought us the 59-time Emmy Award–winning series Game of Thrones—it is said that when a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin. One side brings greatness, and one side brings madness. We know how things ended for Daenerys Targaryen, but what about Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen before her? “Greatness,” Milly Alcock responds with a cheeky smile during our Zoom call. It’s hard to say whether the actress is leading me astray with this answer. After all, HBO Max has been keeping much of its new series House of the Dragon tightly under wraps. But either way, she has me on the edge of my seat.

Set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon centers on a particularly turbulent period of the House Targaryen’s reign. Vying for their rightful place on the iron throne are Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, the would-be first queen regnant of Westeros, and her ruthless uncle, Prince Daemon Targaryen. It’s Succession, but with dragons and bloody battles. The show opens up with our first look at young Rhaenyra, a skilled dragon rider who is more interested in her father’s political affairs than getting married and bearing children. She is regal yet fierce. Alcock, who is sporting a dirty-blonde chop and thick brunette brows on the day of our call, is almost unrecognizable as the platinum-haired princess. It’s the Australian native’s U.S. debut and a striking one at that. Having only appeared in Australian television, the 22-year-old is landing in Hollywood in a big way, holding her own opposite the likes of Matt Smith in one of the summer’s most anticipated shows.

So on the precipice of her breakout moment, I caught up with Alcock to talk about her journey from “dish bitch” to small-screen star, the acting master class that was working on House of the Dragon, and that stunning L.A. premiere look.

The House of the Dragon series was announced in 2019, and you were cast the next summer. Can you take me back to when you first heard about the project and tell me about the audition process?

Well, I hadn’t auditioned in like a year because of COVID and everything. I was living at home in my family attic, and me and my friends at the time, to get through COVID, were throwing live music gigs and live art-gallery events. We would ticket them and would get all of our friends who are painters and artists [to participate]. We would curate and display the work and get the space ready, and then we’d get our friends who are musicians to play, and we’d sell booze and everything in different warehouses. I used to work at the warehouse at this restaurant, and I was washing dishes there. I was a dish bitch at the time. So that was my life. It was very different.

And then I got sent an audition for an unknown HBO project. I went to shoot it with a friend of mine, and he was like, “This scene is from Game of Thrones,” and I was like, “I haven’t seen Game of Thrones.” Well, I hadn’t at that time. I have now. He was like, “This is from Game of Thrones. This is the scene with Arya Stark. This is the needle scene.” So I watched it and was like, “Okay, cool” and sent the tape through and very quickly got a callback. I remember my agent, who was recording me for my callback. After we shot it, he looked me dead in the eye and said, “I feel like I’m just watching history being made.” And I was like, “Don’t say that!” It was just very surreal and crazy and exciting.

Let’s talk about Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen. Once you were able to dive into the actual script and that character a bit more, what really appealed to you about her?

I really liked her resilience and her sense of self. She’s very assured in who she is and what she stands for. And I really adore her morals.

What was your reaction to seeing the series poster with you as Rhaenyra standing in front of the dragon for the first time?

I remember thinking, “Oh my god, I look so tired” because it was an actual still from on set. We didn’t do a separate shoot for it. And I remember Miguel showed it to me privately, and I just looked at him and was like, “What? Where is everyone else?” And he was like, “It’s you.” And I was like, “Why? Why is it just me?” And he was like, “Because you are Rhaenyra!” But I haven’t seen any real-life [billboards]. People have been sending me billboards and stuff, but I haven’t seen any, and I really want to.

This series is set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, but there are sure to be some comparisons of Princess Rhaenyra to Queen Daenerys Targaryen. In what ways would you say the two are similar? And how are they different?

Their position. The way that they position themselves and navigate themselves throughout the world is very similar. But they are different fundamentally because of how they were brought up. Daenerys wasn’t brought up with the assumption of power and the perception of privilege and royalty, whereas Rhaenyra was, so that’s how they differ.

You and Emma D’Arcy both play Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen at different points in her life. Did the two of you work together on any specific mannerisms that are unique to Rhaenyra?

There was no process. We didn’t do that at all, which was really scary for me and Emily [Carey, who plays the younger version of Alicent Hightower]. I asked, “So when am I going to meet Emma?” And Miguel was like, “Ah,” and I was like, “This would have happened. If you wanted it to happen, it would have happened.” I just put my faith and trust in Miguel’s hands that he had chosen the right actor to play the part, and I think Emma’s done a fantastic job. I mean, I haven’t seen any of their work or their episodes. I haven’t even read them. I wasn’t allowed to read them, so I’m excited to see how they make Rhaenyra their own.

What about your own process in terms of getting into the mindset of Rhaenyra and building out this character?

It was a lot of different things. I always make a playlist when I’m studying or researching any character, so I listened to a lot of classical music. I read the books. … Well, I read the bit I’m in. I didn’t read the whole book because it’s a big book. And then obviously, I watched the show. I made spreadsheets and graphs trying to break down what everything meant within the world and how I could contextualize it within the world that we live in. Then, lots of pacing around and talking to myself in my bedroom and, ultimately, trying not to butcher the accent because I’m not British. But as soon as you step onto the set, you are literally in the world, and the costumes change your physicality immensely, and it’s like, “There she is,” especially the wig as well.

How was that transformation for you, working with the glam teams and wardrobe?

It was really exciting. It felt like I didn’t have to act. I just got to be in the space and be truthful within the scene, and it would all come together and contextualize itself within the world. But the wigs, the process of getting the wig made, I had two fittings. They wrap your head in cellophane. But as soon as I put that wig on for the first time, I was like, “Ah, there she is.” And I had many, many fittings with Jany, who is our lovely costume designer, and she is so meticulous and careful. Yeah, she is a pro.

Do you have a favorite look from this season?

It’s the first thing we see her in. The first scene, the first episode. You see her get off that dragon, and when I think of her, that’s the outfit. I think it encompasses the way she wishes she could behave with Westeros as opposed to the other gowns. They are beautiful, though.

In regards to her hair, will we see some intricate braids on Rhaenyra as we did with Daenerys?

Rhaenyra isn’t really into the way she presents herself in that sense. And I think it’s her inherent rebellion to who she is expected to be and how she’s expected to behave. So she’s quite simplistic with her hair—to say, “I’m not going to play into your game. Dolling me up and being someone you can balk at, I don’t want to be a part of it.”

What were you most excited to see come to life on-screen while watching the first episode?

Honestly, everybody’s acting. I cannot stop gushing about this cast. I have fallen in love with all of them. They are all such lovely people and so talented and such great mentors for me—not only for how to be a better actor [and] how to perform better but also how to behave on set and the etiquette and how to treat people and knowing when to step up and when to be quiet and just being respectful of everybody’s work. It’s like school camp. You spend so much time with all of these people. We spent a year shooting this show with all of these people, and you get to share that with everyone.

Speaking of the incredible performances, I want to talk about working with Matt Smith, who plays your on-screen uncle, Daemon Targaryen. He causes trouble for the throne, but you can see Rhaenyra has a soft spot for him in her younger years.

Very early on in the rehearsal process, I remember me and Matt sat down with Miguel, and we wanted to grasp what their relationship was like prior to this. I think they see a likeness within each other. They recognize each other’s perspectives on the crown and on the world itself, and they both have a similar attitude toward it. But … who they are—who they are fundamentally as people but also how they are perceived by the world around them—dictates the way they can navigate throughout that. So when they are put in the same world, we can see a different side of Daemon and a different side of Rhaenyra because they have a mutual understanding of what it means to be a royal, and they can strip back all of the formalities of it.

There’s also the interesting dynamic between Rhaenyra and Alicent Hightower, who was her closest friend and confidant as a young girl but later ends up getting in her way of the throne. Can you tell me about working with Emily Carey and building that foundation for those paths to eventually diverge?

I adore Em, and I feel very protective of her and like her big sister. So there wasn’t a lot to perform because we created that bond within itself. Because of the nature of how we shot the show, I was with Emily a lot of the time and then with a lot of the older actors. So we were the only two young women on set going through this major shift and change—not only in our professional lives but within our personal lives. Emily was 18 at the time that we shot this, and I cannot imagine. I was 20, so I was only two years older, but 18 to 20, you are a different person at that point. So I felt an obligation to make sure she was okay. The scenes where we weren’t the best of friends were difficult because I don’t like being angry at her in real life, and I didn’t want to pretend.

The GOT fan base is huge. Has anything surprised you in the process of working on this project?

It’s all been a surprise because it’s all a completely new experience for me. I’ve only ever done Australian television, which is so different to anything the House of the Dragon was in my experience making it. So this whole experience has been a completely new opportunity to learn everything, like everything. I didn’t have an expectation of what it was going to be like.

Can we talk about the dress you wore to the L.A. premiere? Stunning!

I work with a beautiful stylist called Holly White, and we tried on a bunch of different looks. We had three fittings, and I was trying on everything for press and all the premieres, and we couldn’t figure out what to wear for L.A. Nothing felt quite right. I was going to wear this other piece that was a shirt that was strappy and these trousers, and then it was our last fitting, and Holly was like, “I found the dress.” She pulled that dress out, and we both gasped. I put it on, and it fit like a glove. None of that was altered. And we were like, “Oh my god, this is phenomenal.” It’s also archive McQueen, which is to die for. So it was a last-minute heavenly surprise basically.

Now that you are breaking into the U.S. in a big way with House of the Dragon, what do you hope to achieve next in your career?

This is the exciting thing. Now, I have options. I’ve never had options before. I would love to do an independent film or a play. I really want to do a play. I’ve never done one before, so I think that would be a really exciting challenge and a completely different way of working because the play lives and dies in the moment it’s shown as opposed to being this huge machine. So I definitely want to do something a little more intimate.

Source: whowhatwear.co.uk

Milly Alcock | Go Ahead, Unleash That Voice

Source: flaunt.com

Cowboy boots and a denim skirt was Australian actor Milly Alcock’s first stage ensemble. The play in question? Little Red Rocking Hood at her local church’s theater stage, her first experience feeling like an utter rockstar. Storytelling had become her refuge, she tells me, after continuously pressing rewind on a stolen Blockbuster DVD of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The spotlight that shone over her as a six year old on the local church theater stage is an adrenaline rush she’s chased ever since.

A slightly sunburnt Alcock is calling in on a Sunday from her London flat, set to head off to Greece for holiday. On the heels of finishing filming for HBO Max’s House of the Dragon, the prequel series for smash hit, Game of Thrones, where Alcock plays young Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, she shares, “It’s kind of overwhelming at times because I will be just walking down the street, and I’ll get a pang of like, ‘I get to do this.’ And I’ll get teary-eyed.”

She jokes that Game of Thrones names are quite a mouthful, loaded with syllables that the actors themselves stumble on. Alcock reflects that the greatest takeaway she learned while on the set of House of the Dragon was how she needed to operate to be happy. “I was given the gift of learning by watching such amazing actors,” she shares, “but I also spent so much time alone. I was in a different country alone during lockdown. I was given the opportunity for the lack of a better word that I didn’t want to fuck up. Because I didn’t know if an opportunity like this would ever come again.” She continues, “Learning how to process those feelings was the most valuable thing, because I tried to escape it, fight it, and then I made peace with it. I came out of the other end knowing that when I do a big job, I know in my next job what to do to be happy and how to function.”

On the surface, Reddit forums and GoT fans themselves are skeptical about House of the Dragon following the contentious GoT conclusion. Alcock rebuts, saying that House of the Dragon adds a layered approach to characters that were briefly touched upon in Game of Thrones. “I think Rhaenyra is a three-dimensional character who stands on her own two feet,” she elaborates, “but her strength acts as a mask since she is not allowed to access her vulnerability. She feels that if she accesses it, it will unleash this voice of internalized misogyny that ‘She’s an emotional young woman, she cannot be the heir.’ It takes away from her being as capable.”

Unlike the confidence expressed in her Little Red Rocking Hood starting point, Alcock’s first day on the set of House of the Dragon was spent navigating a web of nervousness. “I couldn’t stop shaking,” she admits, “I was mortified. I have only done Australian TV, which is substantially different from anything of this world. I remember it was a scene at the end of the first episode. I remember going for action and thinking, ‘This is the first take that is going to change your life.’ I was so anxious and tense. I went out for a cigarette and calmed down. You get so excited to work and your body physically reacts, and that inhibits you from doing your job because you want to be relaxed and not skittish.” She laughs and adds, “At least I didn’t get fired.”

Alcock joyfully talks about the mini parties she shared with her London friends when her world was reduced to the parameters of her neighborhood. They’d gather around a flimsy projector to watch movies together, sharing beers and wiping dinner plates clean. To her, London played the host city of her own self-discovery. On cities, Alcock speaks of their power to influence one’s identity, and reckons that with each move to a new one, a new character takes shape in her mind.

Despite the openness to change, as Alcock grows older, she holds dear the words that her mother told her during the height of preteen angst: ‘Be nice to Milly, I like her.’ The phrase still serves as her residual guide, and in times of anguish or strained willpower, she reaches for it with purpose. As for any nerves on set? She relishes slowness. “I give myself time to think,” she says. “I find it hard to know when to ask for help. I’m surrounded by so many different people of different ages on set. I was listening to an A24 podcast, and Mike Mills was describing a film set as a ‘crew of misfit pirates.’ Everyone has got their own little story and we’re all on this ship together. They’re all a bit wacky and a bit weird, all a bit lost, and this passion defines them together.”

Alcock is of course an actor, but she adores photography, which she picked up during lockdown. Her Instagram features an image of Parisian children playing in the streets, something that spoke to her definition of beauty. “I think as humans we are inherently drawn to beauty,” she considers. “Beauty is completely subjective. Some people might see the photo of the kids in Paris and say, ‘Oh the composition is wrong—it’s a bit slanted.’ I think the beauty is in the mistakes because it’s alive. The ability to control an image and evoke a certain feeling is what drew it to me. And not always searching for the aesthetic, but a movement and a motive of the person in front of the lens that gets you interested.”

Above all, Alcock is a dreamer. From the cowboy boots strutting the theater stage to the tightly wound royal garments of Princess Rhaenyra, she gravitates toward an innovative performance. And somewhere between now and future endeavors, she would like to embark on a play.“I think it would be something that would help me hone my skills as an actor,” she shares, “and I think it would make me feel more legitimized, if that makes sense. To have that experience on stage that happens just once in that moment, and it’s such a shared experience with the audience.” Rest assured, that performance is going to glow.