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From Wonderland to House of the Dragon
Amelia “Milly” Alcock burst onto screens across the globe in 2022 when she took on the role of Young Rhaenyra Targaryen in the “Game of Thrones” prequel series, “House of the Dragon.” Alcock shares the role of Rhaenyra with Emma D’Arcy and appears solely in flashbacks set 20 years before the show’s main timeline. She starred in a total of seven episodes across the first two seasons of the fantasy drama before she permanently handed the character to D’Arcy.
Playing the Targaryen princess is the biggest role of Alcock’s career to date, and she told Deadline she’s incredibly grateful to have bagged it at such a young age. Although her time on the show came to an end following her Season 2 appearances, she believes it will open plenty of doors for her in the future. “Now I get to do all of the wonderful, amazing things that I really want to do, and I’m still figuring out what that is. Your dreams shouldn’t be coming true at 21 and 22,” she said.
While Alcock has no idea what the future holds for her post-“House of the Dragon,” it’s clear she’s already come a long way since breaking out with a small role in “Wonderland” in 2014. But many “House of the Dragons” fans might be in the dark about the early years of this Australian star’s career, so let’s take a closer look at the transformation of Milly Alcock.
Milly Alcock knew she loved performing from a young age, but it’s not something that was actively encouraged in her family home. Alcock grew up in a suburban neighborhood on the inner west side of Sydney with her parents and two brothers, who were all much more interested in sports than the arts. But that just spurred on her passion even more. “I think I got my interest in acting because everybody was uninterested in acting,” she later admitted to Vogue Australia.
While the rest of her family was focused on rugby, Alcock was soaking up the arts at school. Her first foray into acting was playing the lead in a primary school play, “Little Red Rocking Hood,” an outside-the-box adaptation of the classic fairy tale. Recalling the moment she officially fell in love with acting, Alcock told the Evening Standard: “I had this euphoric feeling. And I was like, ‘I want that, whatever that is. Yeah, I want to feel like that for the rest of my life.'” Alcock’s love of acting evolved from there, and she continued to find ways to be creative on her own. She showed that she felt very comfortable in front of the camera by posting a series of lively videos on her YouTube channel, “MillyMaysMovies.”
Milly Alcock didn’t wind up starring on “House of the Dragon” by a happy accident; she demonstrated throughout her childhood that she was the kind of person who knew what she wanted and would work hard to get it, often taking her future into her own hands rather than leaving it up to others.
Her passion for acting and strong sense of independence led her to make a huge decision at the tender age of 13. Without any input from her parents, she enrolled herself into Sydney’s Newtown High School of the Performing Arts, a prestigious institution for aspiring actors. Only after she enrolled did she tell her parents that she had an audition for the school, which she obviously nailed.
It was a different world when she arrived at the school, though, as Alcock discovered how seriously the other students took their interest in acting. “I arrived and all my classmates already had agents,” Alcock told Harper’s Bazaar Australia. But she simply took it upon herself to get caught up. “So I started googling agencies and calling them saying, ‘Hi, can you hire me?’ Eventually one did. I think I was literally about 13 at the time,” she recalled.
Milly Alcock’s decision to go to acting school quickly paid off, as not long after securing an agent, she also landed her first professional acting job. Alcock broke into the Australian TV scene in 2014 with an appearance on the romantic comedy-drama “Wonderland.” The show follows the lives of four couples who live in Sydney’s Wonderland apartment building.
Alcock appears in Season 2, Episode 7 of the show as Teen Girl 1. Although it was only a small part, it taught Alcock a valuable lesson about her career. The young actor had been auditioning for roles for quite some time before she landed the part on “Wonderland,” which informed her how competitive the entertainment industry could be.
However, she was glad to learn this lesson at such a young age because it helped her manage her nerves and navigate the audition process going forward. “Art is subjective and most of the time it’s out of your control. So every time I go in for an audition, I think ‘I either get this and things will change or I don’t and things stay the same. There’s no point worrying about it,'” she told Wonderland magazine about her outlook on auditioning (via Town and Country).
Nabbing a small role in “Wonderland” officially got the ball rolling on Milly Alcock’s professional acting career. But it took a few more years before Alcock, who was still in school, secured another TV role. She found it tough to get established in the entertainment industry in Australia, which she described as being a world away from Hollywood. “The government really does not fund the arts,” Alcock told the Evening Standard. “There’s no appreciation of the arts at all. People don’t go to the theater, really; they can’t afford it.”
After a few difficult years, Alcock’s next role came in 2017, when she scored a supporting role in the dramatic miniseries “High Life.” She played Isabella Barrett, the sister of Genevieve (Odessa Young), a teen with a seemingly idyllic life that starts to come apart as she grapples with bipolar disorder and experiences her first manic episode.
This role opened more doors for Alcock, who made her feature debut as Jien in the horror movie “The School,” before starring in five miniseries between 2018 and 2020. The most notable of these was “Reckoning,” which debuted on Sony’s AXN channel in 2019 before hitting Netflix in 2020. She starred alongside “True Blood” and “Homeland” star Sam Trammell, as well as “Obi-Wan Kenobi” and “Yellowjackets” actor Simone Kessell. Alcock appeared in all 10 episodes of the psychological drama, making it her biggest TV role to date.
2019 was a big year for Milly Alcock: along with “Reckoning,” she was offered a major TV role co-starring in “Upright” alongside “Californication” cast member Tim Minchin. Alcock took on the part of troubled teenage runaway Megan “Meg” Adams while Minchin played Lachlan “Lucky” Flynn. The comedy-drama ran for two seasons and followed the unlikely companions as they road trip across Australia — first to deliver an upright piano to Lucky’s ailing mother in Perth, and then to find Meg’s missing mother in the Queensland rainforest.
Producer Chris Taylor has since revealed that the creative team behind “Upright” immediately knew Alcock was the perfect choice to play the raucous teen. Alcock received high praise for her role and was even nominated for best comedy performer at the 10th Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards.
However, the role — a huge turning point in Alcock’s career — came with a crucial decision. Since filming would take her away from Sydney to the other side of the country, Alcock had to drop out of performing arts school. But she dove in head first and never doubted her decision. “I knew that this opportunity would be so much more of a valuable experience than getting my piece of paper,” she recalled to Vogue. She ended up learning a lot from her co-star. “I think he taught me to trust myself in a way that I’ve taken into every role since,” she said about Minchin to Harper’s Bazaar.
Milly Alcock enjoyed a particularly busy acting spell between 2017 and 2020, but found that things slowed down considerably that year following the COVID-19 pandemic. She did have a couple of projects released in 2020, like the short film “Furlough,” but that was filmed at the end of 2019. So in 2020, Alcock found herself back in Sydney, living with her parents.
Alcock’s “Upright” co-star Tim Minchin detailed to News.com.au that he was worried about the knock-on effect this could have on her career. “Milly was on a roll … and then COVID came along and it’s been tough for her … she was really just hitting [her] straps and had her career just completely roadblocked,” he said.
Thankfully, “House of the Dragon” fans know this stagnant period of Alcock’s career was only temporary, as bigger and more fantastical things were waiting just around the corner for her. But for the time being, the actor found herself living a relatively normal life at home and even washing dishes in a local restaurant to supplement her income while she wasn’t acting.
Milly Alcock’s life started to return to normal (or at least normal for an actor) in 2021, as she was able to resume going on auditions. One of these was for an unknown HBO show which would eventually turn out to be the Golden Globe-winning “Game of Thrones” prequel, “House of the Dragon,” which is set 200 years before the original series.
For her audition, Alcock had to film herself and send it off to the producers. She roped in a friend to help with the dialogue of the script she’d been sent. It was from another HBO show but had the names redacted. However, her friend recognized it immediately. “He said, ‘This is a Game of Thrones scene. This is the scene with Arya Stark,'” she recalled to the Evening Standard.
Alcock had never seen “Games of Thrones” before, so she had no idea what the scene was, but thanks to her friend clueing her in, she had a bit more insight for her interview. Just two weeks later, Alcock had signed on to the prequel as the younger version of Rhaenyra Targaryen, ancestor of Emilia Clarke’s Daenerys Targaryen, the Mother of Dragons herself.
Prior to starring in “House of the Dragon,” all of Milly Alcock’s acting roles had been filmed in Australia, so the HBO show, which was shot in London, marked a big transition for her. In many ways, “House of the Dragon” is very similar to its predecessor, since it’s set in the same universe, but there are also huge differences between the two shows. So while Alcock did do her homework on all things “Game of Thrones” (by binge watching the entire series in just two weeks!), she didn’t want her performance to be too influenced by it or Emilia Clarke.
Alcock has since explained that the true inspiration behind the creation of Rhaenyra came from Cate Blanchett in “The Golden Age” and Audrey Hepburn in “Roman Holiday.” And instead of the popular “Game of Thrones” television series, Alcock felt the books were more influential on her performance.
Alcock also credits director Miguel Sapochnik and showrunner Ryan Condel with helping to shape her character. “She’s quite stoic in the way that she, like, presents herself, and I’m quite a fidgety person,” she explained to The Hollywood Reporter. “And [Ryan and Miguel] kept reminding me that there’s strength in stillness. She doesn’t have to prove herself, she has that status.” The transformation into Rhaenyra came with a steep learning curve that also involved memorizing copious amounts of High Valyrian and learning how to ride both real horses and a mechanical dragon.
When “House of the Dragon” premiered on HBO in 2022, playing Young Rhaenyra Targaryen was inarguably the biggest role of Milly Alcock’s career to date. And while she found it exciting to step into such an epic world, it also catapulted her into Hollywood in a big way — and life in the spotlight has taken some getting used to.
Speaking to Complex about this huge transition, she said: “It was completely life-changing in every aspect. I feel like I changed as an actor and as a person. I changed physically.” That physical change includes leaving Australia and moving to London permanently. And while Alcock is grateful for the opportunities that the show has afforded her — such as getting cast as Supergirl in James Gunn’s DC Universe — she’s also had to contend with a new level of fame that has left her feeling a little uneasy. “It was completely overwhelming, incredibly challenging, and indefinitely rewarding in every aspect. But it was a battle,” she said of adjusting to her newfound status in Hollywood.
Her passion for acting has kept her grounded in the midst of her rising celebrity. Alcock
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