The actress who played Princess Rhaenyla Targaryen on the HBO drama discusses her cast, who shaped a young Rhaenyla and the way the show surprised her.
Ollie Upton/HBO
Millie Alcock is at a friend’s house and she gets a call from her agent that will change her life.
age The Australian actress who auditioned Dragon The House
via Zoom Read the lines of a mysterious character named “YR” multiple times. “She’s never watched Game of Thrones (she was just when the original show premiered) But she knew this was probably the biggest chance she’d ever had. When she got the call to take over the pivotal role of the young Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, she needed all her acting skills to not leak the news right away.
“I got the call and obviously I couldn’t tell anyone and I was like I was on the ground,” she recalled in an interview with
The Hollywood Reporter via Zoom. “I asked my friend if he had wine, I really can’t tell him why. He thought something very terrible had happened. He was like: Someone was sick, someone died, something catastrophic happened. It’s been so long, I can’t tell anyone.
However, the actress’s surprise didn’t stop there, she won the Australian Casting Association Rising Star at Award for TV series genuine But she said she was washing dishes when she landed and living in her mother’s attic Dragon .Alcock found that the younger version of Rhaenyra was not just a character who appeared in a few flashbacks, but was the focus of the ensemble play in the first part of the season, until Emma Darcy takes over the remaining roles on the show. “I was surprised,” she said, and, in fact, still seems unsure of what to say about her prominence on the show. “I just Really
shocked. ”
The actress was raving soon Throne then arrived in London Dragon finds the environment she wants to fill in – e.g. 35, – square feet of interconnected multilayer Red keep set.
“It felt like I was literally picked up from Australia and someone threw me in the middle of the ocean with nothing around,” she said. “I Having done an Australian TV show, our budget for the entire show was less than one episode [of Dragon]. I’ve never been on a $100 million set like this before. So having to carry Rhaenyla has a lot of responsibility, which is interesting because Rhaenyla and I have similar trajectories in our stories – we navigate an unforeseen world that we really hope to enter and learn How to face those challenges. “
One challenge that differs from typical TV is, Throne
and dragon Use “source” lighting – each scene tries to simulate lighting that has a visible source in the show world – such as sunlight, moonlight, or flashlights. (This is why some interior scenes look a little dark.)
“Because there’s no electricity in this world, everything is on fire,” Alcock said. “So all the lights you see on the show have people coming around and putting everything on fire.” Light it up and the set will get very hot. I would literally stand like this in sweat ( stretch out my arms )) and two girls with hair dryers. So it’s all very charming.
Alcock had the opportunity to have an early FaceTime connection with her partner Emily Carey, who plays Alice HIghtower, and walks with actor Fabian Frankel, who plays Knight Ser Criston Cole. But she was reluctant One of the performers I met was the other
Ray Nila.
“Emma and I were like, ‘Let’s meet,'” Alcock recalled. “We wanted to meet [director Miguel Sapochnik] and discuss Ray Nila’s development as a character. Miguel didn’t want us to meet – it was really fun! So we never discussed it. Miguel was like, “Just trust you, you all have it.” I think he knew we were going to try to imitate each other.
Sapochnik, who is the showrunner with Ryan Condal, also suggested that Alcock leans towards the stillness of Rhaenyla as a royal figure. She said: “The way she likes to present herself is very stoic.” , and I am a very irritable person. “And [Ryan and Miguel] keep reminding me that there is power in stillness. She doesn’t have to prove herself, she has that status. “
Another challenge is conquering the Dragon Diamond, which is a bit different in the new show than the all-green room terrifyingly by actors in Thrones. The new setting uses the Volume stage, with
Same technique used on The Mandalorian Huge video wall on stage The background is projected during filming, so actors can see their environment in real-time rather than adding it in post-production.
“Someone will show you how you’re going to move so you can Preempt [how the dragon will turn],” she said. “Then they’ll pop you and blow on you. That was really fun. But I don’t know what to do with my face [expression]. I didn’t do any action stuff. You’re not actually moving, you’re just going to…Somewhere.
Alcock has since been highly praised by critics for her performance on the show. So while she may not appear in Dragon
for a long time, like she was in Dragon Diamond, she must be going somewhere .
