House Of The Dragon: HBO’s hotly anticipated Game Of Thrones prequel is the biggest talking point in TV right now, and with just one week until the epic fantasy series lands on our screens, we’re preparing ourselves to meet a whole new set of characters and their fire-breathing companions.

Based on George RR Martin’s Fire & Blood and set around 200 years before the events of Game Of Thrones, the series centres around the House of Targaryen as it erupts into a bloody civil war over the right to rule on the Iron Throne. And if you’ve seen the billboard posters and trailer, you’ll know that one ice-blonde princess is about to take centre stage: Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, played by Milly Alcock.

A rising star from Australia whose roles have flown slightly under the radar, Alcock’s appearance in the new HBO series will be her biggest on-screen role to date. Ahead of the premiere of the show, scroll ahead for everything you need to know about the actor, including her best film and TV roles and more about her character in House Of The Dragon.

Milly Alcock is a 22-year-old Australian actor. She attended Sydney’s Newtown High School of the Performing Arts, but dropped out to pursue a role as misfit Meg in the award-winning Australian drama Upright.

“I knew that this opportunity would be so much more of a valuable experience than getting my piece of paper,” she said of her decision to leave education. 

“I never doubted it for a second. I was almost too impulsive. I was like: ‘No, this is what I’ve been working towards and I’ve been given this amazing opportunity with this amazing cast, with this beautiful script.’ I couldn’t say no and I couldn’t let the fear and anxiety of not finishing school haunt me, because that would have defeated the whole purpose of leaving.”

The actor’s TV debut came in 2014 with the Australian romantic comedy series Wonderland. She went on to star in a range of Australian shows such as Pine Gap, High Life and Janet King, and has also hosted her own Disney Channel programme filmed out of Sydney called The BF Chefs.

Alcock’s film roles include The School (2018), The Gloaming (2020), and Reckoning (2019).

Alcock is best known for playing Meg, a runaway teenager who hitchhikes across the Australian outback in Upright, which earned her the 2018 Casting Guild of Australia Rising Star Award 2018.

Next week, the actor looks set to become a household name with her lead role in House Of The Dragon. 

In House Of The Dragon, Alcock plays the young Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, the firstborn child of King Viserys Targaryen (Paddy Considine). A skilled dragonrider of pure Valyrian blood, Rhaenyra has an intensely close relationship with Alicent Hightower (Emily Carey/Olivia Cooke), the daughter of Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), the Hand of the King.

In a recent interview, Alcock explained how the series deals with the defining relationship between the young girls.

“House Of The Dragon really creates a nuanced conversation of misogyny,” she told IndieWire. “We don’t only explore it through a level of women being shut down and the patriarchy, but also go in-depth about the internalised misogyny that women are constantly faced with, and the competitiveness. Alicent and Rhaenyra’s relationship is at the forefront of that conversation.”

Although the series will explore how the patriarchy closes ranks around women, Alcock has hinted that her character still manages to carve out agency.

“I think that Rhaenyra especially is a fighter,” she told Screen Rant. “She fights for what she wants, and she doesn’t like to take no for an answer.”

Images: Getty; HBO