How House of The Dragon star went from dish washer to princess
One minute she was living in her mum’s attic and washing dishes in a restaurant, now Milly Alcock is starring as a princess in one of the most anticipated prequels in TV history.
Stellar
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The only person surprised by the astronomical rise of Milly Alcock might just be the young actor herself. But it is clear that a healthy dose of pluck and a steely ambition have led her to the brink of worldwide recognition. And while the Australian star is aware her role in the hugely anticipated Game Of Thrones prequel House Of The Dragon may change her life forever, she is trying to take it all in her stride, telling Stellar, “I just want to sit in this feeling for a bit”
When she was growing up in suburban Australia, Milly Alcock needed an outlet for her acting ambitions.
Although her parents and two brothers were encouraging, sports were more their area of expertise, so the plucky and ambitious teenager sought any opportunity she could to hone her craft outside the house.
By 2014, Alcock had landed a small gig playing ‘Teen Girl 1’ in the TV series Wonderland, but she figured her first casual job outside the industry could provide something of a rehearsal space as she worked to land much more substantive roles.
If all the world’s a stage, she figured, the McDonald’s where she worked in an inner-west Sydney suburb could be one, too.
“At 14, I worked at Maccas and I used to do different voices through the drive-through just because I’d get really bored,” Alcock reveals to Stellar, explaining that she regularly toggled between American and British accents when speaking with customers.
Of course, she adds, “I would have to remember which car was which accent when they came up to pay.”
To say she has come a long way since then would be an understatement.
Roles in popular Australian TV series Janet King and A Place To Call Home put her on the radar for both audiences and casting agents; she landed jobs in a number of well-reviewed miniseries, too.
But nothing compares to the size and scope of her latest venture, which will find the 22-year-old fronting the most anticipated TV series of the year.
When Game Of Thrones prequel House Of The Dragon makes its long-awaited debut next week, Alcock – starring as young princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, who has been raised to believe she will accede the throne – will undoubtedly become a familiar name and face to one of popular culture’s most ardently loyal and fiercely passionate fan bases.
And despite being someone who has long had a very clear idea of what she wants to do with her life, the prospect of putting a foot wrong when so much attention is on her weighs on Alcock.
“I think you always dream of getting to the next step, but when it is presented in front of you, it is quite daunting,” she admits. “Because what if I make the wrong move?
“But I think that I’ve learnt to let go and I have to allow myself to fail. Because it is unavoidable in this industry that you might make a mistake or say the wrong thing.”
Which may be why, as she sits in a large, nondescript conference room at a popular celebrity hotel just off Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood for her chat with Stellar, Alcock admits to feeling a mixture of nerves and excitement.
She is wearing an oversized button-up shirt and a pair of loose-fitting white pants, while her feet are nestled up on the chair and a pair of thongs sit on the floor. (You can take the girl out of Australia…)
She fiddles with the many gold rings on her fingers, pulling them off and putting them back on several times during our talk.
A day later, House Of The Dragon will have its glittery world premiere at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, which she will attend with co-stars Paddy Considine, Matt Smith, Eve Best, Steve Toussaint, Emily Carey, Olivia Cooke and Emma D’Arcy.
It is the start of something big, so she explains that “I am just trying to enjoy it all. Because it might get bigger than this, and this could become normal – and how beautiful that this is my first moment.”
Alcock notes that this is her “first-ever press junket, so I have nothing to compare it to. I want to sit in this feeling for a bit.
“I want to process it and try to not get too overwhelmed with the ‘what ifs’ or the ‘shoulda, woulda, coulda’ of it all.”
Her first lesson in eschewing regret came during Year 12 at the Newtown High School of the Performing Arts in Sydney.
Having landed a co-starring role in Tim Minchin’s Foxtel series Upright, she faced a gruelling shooting schedule in remote locations across the country.
With only a month left before graduation, “I was like, I either have to sit all of my exams in rural Australia or I was just going to drop out of school,” Alcock says. “So I dropped out because it was never really my thing.
“I was a terrible student in the sense that I really struggled to write what was going on in my head. I struggled with the education system in general. It wasn’t for me.
“I’d try really hard, but get really bad marks, which was frustrating. I found that acting was an oasis that I could allow myself to fall into and really thrive.”
Her mum, Emma, a nanny, gave her space to grow.
“Nobody in my family works in the arts, but I think that I got lucky in the sense that my mother, who is the strongest person I know, always believed in me,” Alcock says.
“She was like, ‘Just do it, but you’ve got to believe in yourself. I will stand by you, but I’m not going to open the doors for you.’
“So she kind of, at a very early age, gave me the confidence and the drive to really chase after what I wanted.”
The simultaneously beachy and bookish Alcock used her moxie to get cast in House Of The Dragon with just two self-tapes as her audition.
“That was it, which is so surprising because when I read the script, I didn’t realise how big my part is and I got really emotional,” she tells Stellar.
“I never thought this would happen to me. I was washing dishes in a restaurant, living in my mum’s attic. This doesn’t happen to people like me, so it was incredibly quick.”
Alcock was having dinner at a friend’s place when her agent called her “really late, which was weird”, with the news that would change her life. She was going to become a Targaryen.
“I froze,” she recalls, “and took a deep breath and said to my friend, ‘Do you have wine?’ Then I called my mum.”
It is too soon for Alcock to contemplate what will happen to her profile after the series premieres, even with a precedent being set by Emilia Clarke, who rose from relative anonymity to global movie star after embodying Daenerys Targaryen on Game Of Thrones.
“I don’t think anyone can prepare for a life change,” she says.
“It’s not like I am going through something that a lot of people have experienced, so I think that there is an element that is quite daunting about that, which is why we are trying to lean on each other as a cast.”
Her support comes from her fellow actors, such as Considine as her character’s father, King Viserys, and Smith – fresh from playing Prince Philip in The Crown – as her uncle, Prince Daemon Targaryen, even though storylines will complicate their characters’ relationships.
“Gender identifies her position within the world,” Alcock says of Princess Rhaenyra.
“And I think that because she exhibits masculine traits and is drawn to traditionally masculine activities, her femininity and her voice is questioned.
“I think this show explores that masculinity and femininity can be found within each counterpart and each gender.”
As for critics who found Game Of Thrones a bit too bloodthirsty, Alcock says the content in House Of The Dragon is never gratuitous.
“The way that our show specifically has shifted what is graphic and what is violent is that it hasn’t been put in there for [the sake of it],” she says. “It has really been put in there because it adds to the story that we are trying to tell.
“Ultimately, it is the world that these people live in, it’s the things that they face and that they see, and so in order for the audience to fully grasp the emotions that these people are feeling, whether it’s love, loss, heartbreak or euphoria, it needs to be put into place and they’ve made sure those choices are valid.”
Along with their dragon-wielding prowess, the Targaryens are also known for their unique white-blonde hair, something Alcock relished sporting along with her regal costumes.
“It is a luxury to go to work and not recognise yourself,” she says.
“We are in an age where we are all playing a caricature of ourselves, in a way. I think social media has trained us to inherently mask who we are, which is ironic because authenticity is what is chased after so much, in film and television especially.
“So I think going to work and not being able to recognise myself afforded me the privilege to create an authentic version of the character.”
Away from the set, Alcock’s home for now is a flat in London that she rents with a mate. She is quick to point out that it “isn’t very Hollywood” and is, in fact, quite small.
“You have to go downstairs to pay for the gas,” she explains. “You have to go to a pay point and manually put it in, so sometimes we run out of hot water and you have to run to the shop and pay it. It’s very normal.”
But neither running lines away from a drive-through window nor living large in fancy digs are indicators of success for Alcock. Everything goes back to acting.
“It’s being able to work on projects that speak to me, whether it is issues I really care about or people I’m fascinated by,” she says.
“Success, for me, is the freedom to do what I want, and also the freedom to be able to make bad choices and still get back on my feet.”
House Of The Dragon premieres at 11am on August 22 on Foxtel and Binge.
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Originally published as How House of The Dragon star went from dish washer to princess
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