Milly Alcock Was Faced With Jarring Criticism On HBO's House Of The Dragon Set

If you've watched HBO's first major "Game of Thrones" spin-off and prequel, "House of the Dragon," I bet that, early in the show's first season, you realized that Milly Alcock is a pretty capable young performer. Alcock, who plays a young version of Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen until the halfway point of season 1, is very good in the role until Emma D'Arcy eventually takes over after the series throws in a decade-long time jump ... but apparently, somebody at HBO didn't agree while Alcock was working on that first season.

During an appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon," Alcock revealed that, very early into production on the series (which centers on the Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons), she was approached by a network executive who made her a pretty unflattering offer. "On my second day on 'House of the Dragon,' one of the — I'm not gonna say who, but someone very high up — pulled me aside and was like, 'Um, we're gonna get you an acting coach,'" Milcock recalled, shocking Fallon. ("No. 'We're gonna get you an acting coach?' Oh no!" Fallon replied. "Did you just freak out and go, 'Did you just say that?'")

"It just confirmed everything that I've kind of known to be true, [which] is that I'm not very good at my job," Milcock added, only for the audience to protest that sentiment by groaning. "You know what I mean!" she continued. "I was like, 'I can't do this. This is terrible. This is a big mistake.'" Fallon, for his part, also pointed out that "House of the Dragon" won a Golden Globe for best drama series for its first season — which heavily features Milcock — and encouraged her to take some credit for her work.

It's been a while since "House of the Dragon" first aired, so what's the deal with Alcock's younger Rhaenyra again? Also, how did she manage to show up in season 2 of "House of the Dragon" despite the time jump?

When we first meet Rhaenyra as a Targaryen princess at the beginning of "House of the Dragon," she's awaiting the birth of her younger sibling, a long-awaited son for her father King Viserys I Targaryen (Paddy Considine). Though she goes with her father and her best friend Alicent Hightower (Emily Carey) to a ceremonial joust to welcome the prince, Viserys abruptly exits when he gets news that the labor isn't going well. Viserys, faced with a choice, allows his maesters to perform an impromptu C-section on his wife Queen Aemma (Sian Brooke), who dies ... as does his newborn son.

I bring all of this up to say that after Viserys loses his wife and son, Rhaenyra is his only real choice for an heir — and he does ultimately announce that she will follow in his footsteps and sit on the Iron Throne after his death. Unfortunately for Rhaenyra, Viserys' Hand of the King, Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), has other ideas; after he puts his daughter Alicent in Viserys' sightline, the elderly king marries the much-younger woman, creating a permanent divide between Rhaenyra and her best friend turned stepmother. 

Just before the time jump, Rhaenyra is defiant in the face of anyone who doubts her claim to the Iron Throne — which is completely fair when you consider that the King himself named her — but also makes some strategic moves of her own. When she's told that she must marry one of her many suitors, she puts aside her growing attraction for her own uncle, Matt Smith's Prince Daemon Targaryen (these Targaryens do love keeping it in the family, after all), and her secret tryst with her chosen knight, Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel). Instead, Rhaenyra quietly makes an arrangement with Laenor Velaryon (John Macmillan) in which the two will marry to join their powerful houses but ... enjoy themselves outside of the bonds of said marriage. (Laenor, Rhaenyra realizes quickly, prefers the company of men, and she's happy to let him pursue his passions.) The time jump occurs right after Rhaenyra and Laenor's wedding (which, in true Westerosi fashion, ends in utter bloodshed), but in a surprising twist, the showrunners of "House of the Dragon" figured out a way to include Milly Alcock in season 2.

How, exactly, did season 2 of "House of the Dragon" find a way to get Milly Alcock back to Westeros? It all comes down to Daemon, who, after the time jump — and after Laenor fakes his own death to live freely — marries Emmy D'Arcy's Rhaenyra and lives as her consort. In season 2, Rhaenyra, angry at her husband for a horrifying murder plot he orchestrated that left two of Alicent's grandchildren dead in a brutal fashion, orders him to take Harrenhal for her forces ... and before long, Daemon discovers the dreary old castle might be just a smidge haunted. In the season's third episode, "The Burning Mill," Daemon dreams of a young Rhaenyra (Alcock in D'Arcy's stead) stitching the decapitated head of one of those aforementioned grandchildren, the young Prince Jaehaerys, back onto his tiny body. Then, in the episode that follows, "The Red Dragon and the Gold," Daemon once again sees young Rhaenyra in his dreams; this time, she's in front of the Iron Throne, and he beheads her after she accuses him of treason.

After "The Burning Mill" aired, showrunner and co-creator Ryan Condal spoke to Entertainment Weekly and said that he was proud that the series managed to keep Alcock's return a massive secret ... and that, despite whatever an executive said to her previously, she was happy to come back. "It was very easy in terms of will," Condal recalled. "We were excited about the prospect. Milly was eager to come back and everybody was excited to have her back."

"She's very busy, so it was a tricky thing to navigate around the schedule, but we essentially had her in for a couple of days right at the start of production," Condal also remembered; "House of the Dragon" had to work around Alcock's shooting schedule on James Gunn's "Superman," which features her as Supergirl. "I think one of our greatest feats was keeping that a secret all the way through, given the fact that it happened right at the beginning," Condal added.

"Instead of warfare or dragons or images of horror, it was really more of him being haunted by these people who he had done wrong by in his past, particularly young Rhaenyra," Condal clarified as to why the show needed Alcock to return for these two cameos. "That's the girl who took his claim, not elder Rhaenyra, played by Emma D'Arcy. It's that version of Rhaenyra that removed him as the heir to the throne, and then was named heir and took his claim. As you'll see his story at Harrenhal unfold, there is an element of Daemon having to reckon with his past and choices that he's made and things that he's done."

"House of the Dragon," including Alcock's central performance and cameos, is currently streaming on HBO Max ... but we likely won't see season 3 for some time now.