It comes as no surprise when Emily Carey, the 19-year-old actor who plays the teenage version of House of the Dragon’s Alicent Hightower, tells me – with welcome candour – of the daunting nature of taking on her role: “It was very, very scary…petrifying. There have been a huge amount of tears.” After all, she’s starring in the long-awaited prequel series to Games of Thrones, which is (according to critics) one of the best television shows of all time. For many teenager actors, it would be a baptism of fire – or should we say, “Gods, kings, fire and blood”, to coin a key phrase from the hit franchise.
Thankfully, this isn’t Emily’s – who prefers to use the rolling pronouns ‘she/they’, which are typically used interchangeably in practice, and can sometimes be used as a defiance of fixed notions of gender – first rodeo. Not yet 20, she has an impressive 15 acting credits to her name (according to imDb), and has played “six or seven younger versions of”. These include playing a 12-year-old version of Gal Gadot’s titular character in Wonder Woman (2017), and a 14-year-old Lara Croft in Tomb Raider (Alicia Vikander plays the lead) the following year. The part is, nonetheless, a massive step up: “A lot of my younger versions have been one scene or a flashback or a walk-on. With this, I got to go into a lot more depth.”
What has helped, paradoxically, is that Emily isn’t a diehard Games of Thrones viewer – or, at least, she wasn’t when she got the part, having never watched the show before entering the pre-production stages of filming. “ I was not [originally] a fan. Fantasy isn't my genre, you know? I'm more of a cheeky romcom kind of gal. Which I think was a good thing in a way that I wasn't freaking out in that sense.” She “gets it now”, however – speaking enthusiastically about the show’s well-written “truthful characters” – particularly among the female parts which are “completely three-dimensional”.
Former ambivalence about the show aside, Emily has felt the pressure at times during filming. “It's strange as an actor to come into a world that belongs to the fans already, rather than fans, flocking to something we, as actors have created – if that makes sense.” (It does, incidentally – and is one of the many moments during this interview that I marvel at Emily’s eloquence and perceptiveness at such a young age). What added to this pressure was the extent to which Emily felt herself empathising with her character, Alicent Hightower, whom in her more junior incarnation (Alicent is 14 years old when the show’s timeline begins) is an “anxious, nervous young girl” : “Our brains function in similar ways. We respond very emotionally.”
The Iron Throne has never looked so good.
In some ways, this deep empathy inspired Emily’s performance: for instance, her portrayal of the close friendship between Alicent Hightower and Rhaenyra Targaryen – who in adulthood become fierce rivals. “We [Emily and Millie Alcock, who plays young Rhaenyra) played around with toeing the line between platonic and romantic. Because aged 14, that best friend you have is your girlfriend. The person you want to be with all the time. I truly believe you don't ever find that closeness again, unless you're with a romantic partner.”
It’s testament to the close friendships Emily has built - both with her co-stars (she says she’s particularly close to Rhys Ifans, who plays her father Otto Hightower – ”he’s just a joy” – and Millie – ”she’s like a big sister”) and the “best group of friends” she surrounds herself with, that she was able to cope when her mental health took a turn for the worse during filming.”I took a huge dip in my mental health, during the middle of shooting. I wasn’t looking after myself in the way that I should have been. My best friends helped me and propped me up throughout the whole experience.” More recently, they were also there to ease her through her anxiety during a recent House of the Dragon premiere: “I turn around and some of my bestest closest friends are there just sobbing on the carpet with pride. And it was one of the most rewarding feelings I've ever felt in my life.”
During our exclusive interview, Emily Carey chats to GLAMOUR about everything from the House of the Dragon’s feminist credentials, the evolving relationship between her character Alicent and childhood friend Rhaenyra, to going into greater detail about her mental health struggle and the tools she’s learnt to cultivate to manage it.
Hi Emily! Thanks for talking to me today, and congratulations on your starring role. How do you feel about joining the Games of Thrones universe?
I'll be honest: it was petrifying, overwhelming and daunting. There have been a huge amount of tears! It's completely going in blind, into the unknown. I had no idea what to expect from it: I was not a fan of Games of Thrones, which I think was a good thing in a way that I wasn't freaking out in that sense. But of course everyone knows Game of Thrones. it's just strange as an actor to come into a world that belongs to the fans already, rather than fans, flocking to something we, as actors, have created. If that makes sense. Everyone knows how mammoth and how huge it is, but I didn't watch the show until we were in pre-production. I just think fantasy isn't my genre, you know, I'm more of a cheeky romcom kind of gal, which isn't, isn't very Game of Thrones-y at all, but it was when I watched it that I was like, oh, I get it now. I get the hype. It's so much more than dragons and stuff. It's very grounded, truthful characters and the stories and themes that a modern audience can relate to. There's so much more to it than what I thought it was. And hopefully this show will do the same thing and pull in more people.
“Men would sooner put the realm to the torch, than see a woman ascend the iron throne…”
What was your favourite thing about playing Alicent Hightower?
Alicent Hightower is very near and dear to my heart. Our brains function in similar ways, I think – we respond very emotionally. When we first meet her, she's this anxious, nervous young girl… very much a people pleaser. She does this thing where she picks at her cuticles as a form of self-harm or stress relief. She is very internal. She's best friends with Rhaenyra, who is the complete opposite to her. Rhaenyra is very external. She pushes things out. They process emotions differently and they perceive the world in very different ways, which is why I think they're so close. Beause they're constantly learning and taking things from one another and they balance each other out very well.
I wanted to ask you about the challenge of playing a younger version of a character. Because obviously you've done that before in previous roles, for instance in Tomb Raider – how did this experience compare?
Yes. I think this is my sixth or seventh “younger version of”! I just looked like a whole lot of people. It worked out great for me, you know? It's an experience. This is so different to any sort of younger version I've done before. I mean, granted, a lot of my younger versions have been one scene or a flashback or a walk-on and this, I got to go a lot more in depth. The creative freedom that I had with the role was something that I've never had before. Like, in Wonder Woman, Gal Gadot, who played the older version of me, actually recorded my lines and then I had to learn how she spoke. I didn't get to speak in my own way. I was strictly there to play a younger version. Whereas with this job, specifically, there are 10 years between me and Olivia Cooke (who plays the older version of Alicent). And so much happens within those 10 years. Circumstances change people – they push them around. You'll see [Alicent and Rhaenyra] go from practically children into fully fledged adults as a whole lot of growing up to do in between then as well. It's like we're playing two completely different people. At the beginning of rehearsals, Millie and I were like, when are we going to meet Olivia and Emma [D’arcy, who plays the older version of Rhaenyra]. And it became clear that, for Miguel [Sapochnik, who directed the series] this was a choice, not just an accident, that we weren’t meeting. He liked that disconnect, which I think is interesting. We haven't even read the episodes we're not in, so I have no idea what happens. Obviously we never crossed over on set. So I have no idea what Olivia did with the role. And I'm just excited to see it as a viewer.
It’s wonderful to see female friendship being paid so much attention on screen at the moment, across the board of different mediums (books, films, television). How did you approach depicting that on-screen?
Having a female friendship on screen, especially between two young women, is one of the most interesting relationships to watch, but also to play as an actor. We played around with toeing the line between platonic and romantic because at 14, especially as a woman, the best friend that you have at 14 is your girlfriend. It's the person that you wanna be with all the time. You think that you are never gonna find this closeness ever again, you think you're gonna be best friends forever and ever, and ever, and nothing can ever tear you apart. And I truly believe you don't ever find that closeness again, unless you're with a romantic partner. I think it's interesting to play around with the depth of that relationship. And we did, and we talked about it, a huge amount. Millie was like, it’s a tactile closeness where you're just feeling and touch-y.
Do you have a close friendship off-screen now, as well?
For sure. She's like a big sister. She gives really good, big sister advice. But it's just, it's such a niche thing. You know, we're sort of clinging to each other throughout this whole experience and have done from literally day one. We FaceTimed and we just knew: we didn't know what we were getting into, but we knew that we needed one another in this process. I mean the whole cast is genuinely the loveliest and I think we're so lucky, but as I said, Millie and I were sort of clinging to each other because you can't turn to someone and be like, “Hey, remember that time when you almost might have had fame, but you also could have burned out?” It was very scary. There's no handbook, there's no one you can ask or anything. So we're just going with the flow and holding onto each other for dear life.
What in the name of all that is sexist?!
Of course – it’s probably hard to find many people who do relate, at that very specific moment in your career. And do you have those profoundly close friendships, outside of the cast and on-screen relationships?
One hundred per cent. I got to bring some of my closest friends to the London premiere. I get really nervous about press and I get really anxious about [red] carpets – I don't do well on them. Internally, it's not my cup of tea. It’s the part of my job that I dislike - even though it tends to be the bit that people romanticise. I remember we had these big doors that opened onto the carpet and I came out these doors and I breathing through it as I did the pictures – then I turn around and some of my bestest closest friends are there, just sobbing on the carpet with pride. It was one of the most rewarding feelings I've ever felt in my life. For me, this job was long and intense – as it was for everyone. But I was still 17 when I started, I was a kid when I came onto it, and I felt like a grown up when I left it. Both Millie and I went through huge life changes throughout the shooting process. To have my bestest friends there, who propped me up throughout the whole experience, was incredibly rewarding and emotional. It's so telling and so important who you surround yourself with. I have the best group of friends and I could talk about them for hours and hours.
You mentioned that there'd been some life changes during the filming process. Are you comfortable talking more about that?
I mean, it was my first job as an adult. My first job on my own without a chaperone or anyone to lean on. Of course, the creative team and the producers were amazing and supportive, but there was no one to put in front of me. It was my first time living on my own, well, living part-time away from home. It was a point where I was spending months at a time away from home, which was difficult. I took a huge dip in my mental health. There's a difference between mental health and mental illness, and I am a mentally ill human being. I think you should treat mental illness in the way that you would treat a physical illness. And I have no shame in talking about it. My illness took a turn throughout the middle of shooting because I wasn't looking after myself in the way that I should have been. It was a process to try and get my brain back on track whilst also shooting this job. I think it's going to be difficult to watch in the sense of, you look at a scene and you remember what the day was. So I will remember certain things about where my head was at when I was in the show – but being in a completely different place now. Hopefully, it'll make me feel good about where I am now. But during those long days, I got very tired emotionally because the scenes are so intense. As I said, Alicent is very close to me. The lines blurred between Alicent’s brain and my brain. I found it difficult to step away at the end of the day, but Miguel was a huge help. Millie was a huge help. The beautiful friends that I mentioned earlier, as I said, propped me up throughout the entirety of the shoot. I managed to ground myself and get my head back in the game. But I have no shame in talking about the fact that I struggled. On a job like this, it's hard not to. But I'm doing so much better now.
Thank you for sharing – it’s generous of you to do so. You mention you learnt to ground yourself – what kind of practices helped you do that?
Recognising the different types of rest you can have. You can have emotional rest, which sometimes means shutting yourself in your bedroom, sleeping and binge watching TV. Which some people will view as, oh, that's isolating and that's damaging or isolating yourself. That's not good for you. But sometimes it is good for you. Sometimes it would be more damaging for me to drain my social battery by hanging out with my friends. It's not because I enjoy hanging out with them. Just because it took up a huge amount of energy. That's how my brain works. Recognising how your own brain works is so important. I think we forget that we are when mental health is being preached. I think it's wonderful, but I think it's preached on a very broad level. As individuals, we're all going to handle things in different ways. I found that sometimes I did just need to shut myself away, but at the same time, I then had to recognise when I was isolating myself. When I did need to put myself back out there and be like, Hey, can someone come sit in this bed and binge watch TV with me? So I'm not on my own. I think you just need to take time to connect with yourself. Brain and body work in tandem. For me personally, whenever I'm not doing good up here, I can feel it in my body before I start to recognise what's going on in my brain. Your brain can lie to you, your body never does. So listening to your body and how you're feeling, where you're feeling things, whether it's in your stomach or your chest, or whether you feel heavy can often be a sign of what's going up in your brain that you can't really understand or communicate. So, taking time to connect… meditation is so great. I love meditating and grounding myself physically because it connects me with my brain and emotions.
House of the Dragon, much like Games of Thrones, throws up a lot of questions around the treatment of women. In one sense, because the women are treated awfully and are second-class citizens – but then there’s a powerful narrative around female rulers, and the craziness that men that would rather start a civil war rather than let a woman be in control. Does it lead you to reflect on your own feminism? I'm assuming that you are a feminist.
I am a feminist. Feminism is a word that people are not liking at the moment, and I don't know why. Feminist, by definition, is someone who believes that men and women should be equal. You're not fighting for women to be above men. We're not pushing for a power dynamic switch. We want equality. That's all it is. So, by definition, I am a feminist and everyone should be – there's nothing extremist about it. But the show made me reflect on, on my own personal beliefs. I was raised by a single mum. It was always just me and my mum at home. So I've always had very feminist values. But, within the show, one of my favourite things is that, although there is this huge theme of misogyny throughout, it's the main theme: “Should a woman sit the iron throne?”. I tackle [feminism] a lot in the show, whether it be the fact that every decision in Alicent's life is made by men in power, whether it be the journey of realisation she goes on to reflect on her dad and how he fits into this patriarchal society that she wasn't aware of, whether it be the internalised misogyny that is pulled out and pushed onto Alicent and Rhaenyra where they end up in competition with one another. Whatever it might be, if you take away those misogynistic themes, and if you take away that storyline as a whole, these women, these characters are still completely three dimensional. They have a huge amount of depth. They still have other things and other relationships going on within the show. None of these characters have been put there just to serve a purpose. And that is one of my favourite things about the show, because yes,it is important to show this storyline, for sure. And I want the viewers to be able to reflect on how it correlates to the modern day world that we live in. Especially in current social and political circumstances and the climate that we're in at the moment. But at the same time, there's so much more to the show. And I think these women are written beautifully.
In fact, female friendships are changing the world.
Alicent's put in some vulnerable situations for a teenager, for instance, in season one where she’s sent, as a 14-year-old, to Kings Viserys’ chamber – her best friend’s dad – in a flamboyant, grown-up dress that used to belong to her late mother. What was it like filming those sort of more uncomfortable scenes?
I’ll be honest: it was heavy. It was difficult to try and figure out the thought processes that were going on in Alicent's head. I'm a very immersive actor and that's just the way I work. If a director gives me a note, I can't think about the note. I just have to feel it. I black out, as soon as they say action. I'm not thinking as myself, for me, it's a true form of escapism from my own brain. As I said, as a mentally ill person, I like to step out and, and leave my thought processes behind for a minute. Which was difficult for this role. Because me and Alicent think the same. Something that we played around with in that scene – and wanted to leave ambiguous – is how aware Alicent is of the implications. I think she is thinking about it, but doesn't want to, so she pushes it away. She doesn't want to assume, she doesn’t want to believe it. She goes to take Kings Viserys this book, and she’s psyched herself up to get in there. And [the back story is] she’s used to read to the old king, that’s something I took from the book [George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood, which this television series is based on]. It’s when she gets there and that door closes behind her and she suddenly realises – that’s when the penny drops. She's in a room with a man alone, but it's not just a room, it's his bedroom and this isn't just a man, it's her best friend's dad. And it's the king. Everything hits all at once. That is when the wheels start to turn in her head of, who can she trust? What is actually going on? Alicent has learned to observe. She's very aware of the Game of Thrones. She's very aware of how the men dictate things. I just don't think she expects it to be on her. And I don't think she ever expects it to come from her father, because she idolises him. We, as people, forget that our parents are humans and it's their first time doing life as well. And it's definitely a journey that Alicent goes on throughout the series. She becomes more aware in that scene in particular – that’s where things stopped to click.
You’ve looked absolutely incredible at the red carpet events for House of the Dragons – was that a triumphant costume change, compared to the medieval period costumes you had to wear during filming?
Thank you. The outfits on set were so detailed and intricate, but incredibly heavy and uncomfortable. The way that they pull you in it, it physically changes you and even changes how you breathe in. Which was great, because you feel like you're in the character again, so it makes your job that little bit easier, but I was glad to get them off at the end of the day – then I would I put my own clothes on and feel incredibly undressed! A lot of my press looks have had nods to the show in them. My Amsterdam premiere look was green, which is of course a nod to the symbolic Hightower colour, which is a big thing within the show – like my mother's dress that I wear. I can't give the context, but it's in a lot of the trailers; me in another poignant green dress at an important point of the show. So I wanted to get a green dress in there somewhere, and I thought Amsterdam was the perfect place. It had a medieval neckline, but also these cool cutouts and it was modernised and definitely “Emily” as well. Then I wore red for the London premiere again in a nod to the show because the Targaryen colours of black and red and it was a black background with a red dress. I was so happy with all of my looks. I just had the best time. I mean, I'm a teenage girl, so I love trying on fancy clothes and getting to play around with fashion. I even made it into Vogue's best dressed!
Aside from getting into Vogue’s best dressed (which was well-deserved, by the way!), what are you excited about right now – personally and professionally?
In terms of my personal life, I have just officially moved out of my home home and I have a flat and I think this job completely prepared me for that. I'm feeling secure and excited to nest and hibernate as the show is coming out. I have a place to be where I can pretend that nothing is happening and I'm just living a normal life. Professional wise, obviously just being involved in this show in any way, shape or form is a huge career move, but I feel so blessed to have worked with incredible people and learned so much as an actor throughout this job. Now I can do my bit, and I can go onto other things – I'm not tied in for years and years. I'm so fortunate to have been able to help set up this incredible series. And I can't wait to see where it goes, but I'm so excited to see where I go as well.
House Of The Dragon launches on 22 August on Sky Atlantic and streaming service NOW.
