‘It’s Hard to Be Universally Beloved’: Milly Alcock Goes Deep on Her ‘Supergirl’ Journey, From Auditioning to Tuning Out Toxic Fans

“Supergirl” star Milly Alcock’s first big role outside of Australia was dragon sized.

As Rhaenyra Targaryen in “House of the Dragon” — HBO’s “Game of Thrones” prequel series that premiered in August 2022 — Alcock played the headstrong, dragon-riding princess whom her father names as his heir, causing chaos in Westeros. Alcock landed the part at age 20, auditioning remotely during the pandemic from her home in Sydney. And though she was in only the first half of the show’s first season — before Emma D’Arcy took over to play Rhaenyra as an adult — she became an immediate fan favorite.

And it was Alcock’s performance as Rhaenyra that drew the attention of James Gunn, the writer-director of “Superman” who, with Peter Safran, also runs DC Studios as co-chairmen and co-CEOs. Gunn, Safran and the DC team cast Alcock to play Kara Zor-El, known to the world as “Supergirl,” in a tag at the end of last summer’s “Superman,” the official movie kickoff of the DCU. “Supergirl” — led by Alcock in her first film role, directed by Craig Gillespie and written by Ana Nogueira — opens on June 26.

In an in-depth interview conducted in mid-April for Variety’s May 20 cover, before either of us had seen “Supergirl,” Alcock recounted her journey to playing Kara. She also delved into why she became an actor in the first place, how “House of the Dragon” changed her life — and how she’s trying to put the phone down and ignore the trolls.

So it was many moons ago. I can’t remember if we talked explicitly about “Supergirl” then, but a few weeks later I got an email sent and they were like, “We want you to tape ‘Supergirl.’” And I think at that point I knew that it was based off “Woman of Tomorrow” — they attached that comic to it as well. I was in Australia at the time. I hadn’t been home in, like, two years. So I was dealing with being back home, my family home, and everything that comes with that. I did a self-tape, and then a few days later, I was still in Australia, they told me that they wanted me to test for it. I never tested before for anything. Because everybody’s online now, which is very different to being in a room. And then I flew to Atlanta from Australia, which is a massive flight.

I was so scared. I was so nervous. Because it’s not the room that is scary, it’s not the people that are scary. It’s the stakes, you know? And then I remember listening to “This Is the Day” on the car ride there. I don’t know if you know that song.

Yeah, and that was the day that my life was going to change, ironically enough — that’s a line in the song. I had a feeling. I just had a feeling. I think you have an intuition when a part is yours or not. I remember getting back in to the hotel room, and I was like, “I’ve gotten that.”

No, not that I nailed it, but it was such a warm room, and I did the best that I could. And James is so great at making me feel so comfortable and so heard. It was like we were shooting a scene. And I remember getting back home and I was like, “Oh, I’ve gotten that. Shit, what am I going to do now?” Because it’s like, “Oh now, I have to do it,” because it’s so exciting the climb, but then you have to do it.

I knew that I was hiding from myself in a way by my initial feelings towards it, which was [affecting a faux casual voice], “I’m here to be an actor. I’m not here to be a movie star.” Unfortunately — not unfortunately, very fortunately — I’ve fallen into the privilege of being in a franchise, and what that means to so many people and to my career. I couldn’t book a role in an independent film until I had done a franchise. I didn’t really work a year after “House of the Dragon.” I did one play that year.

Yeah, I did “The Crucible.” So throughout the process of making the film, my personal experience of being Milly mirrored Kara’s experience, which was, “Hide, run away, pretend it’s not happening.” And then you have to face it to heal a part of yourself that you’ve been neglecting. So it was this beautiful thing that just happened.

When I was in it, because it was such a long process. I found this confidence of, “No, I do deserve to be here, and I am talented,” and all these things that I really still struggle to believe. And all of that was kind of happening as it was unfolding, and Craig is so fabulous. I remember going to him when we just had started pre — I sat him down and I was like, “I’m freaking out. I have no idea how I’m going to do this. I don’t know how to be that person.”

Not be that person in the sense of playing her — I was like, “How do I be that presence within the media, and dealing with everything?” That really started our relationship in a place of trust, because I knew that he had my back, and my best interests.

It wasn’t really a space that I had my eye on. So I learned a lot in the process of making it and playing her about the world, everything that comes with it.

I was obsessed with “Annie” for some reason. The original. I could quote that film front to back. And that was the first film that I watched and that got me excited about performing, because, for me, it’s always been the feeling of it. Sometimes I’m like, acting is an avenue for me to emote, and that’s what I’m really interested in, is emoting.

I was like, “I have to do all that?! No!” Because she’s in, like, every scene. No, I was excited. Ana has done such a good job in telling this story, and I think that she’s made this really fabulous female superhero. It’s about a girl healing her relationship with herself — who’s been really traumatized — through this other young woman. And it doesn’t center around love, which you don’t see alot.

I did two months of training. I would go to Leavesden, I would work out in the morning, and then I would have a break, and then I would do two hours of stunts. In the stunt training, I was starting from zero. I’ve always been an athletic person; I’ve always done sports, but in my early adulthood, that fizzled out a bit.

I played pretty much everything. I played hockey. I played soccer, tennis, netball. I did nippers, which is a very Australian thing.

Netball is kind of like basketball. You’re on a court, and you can’t move with the ball and there’s different positions. So you kind of get really good at almost running with the ball by throwing it. It’s quite a small court.

No. It’s a completely different sport. It’s called netball.

Wow. It’s a really fun sport. I did that, I did nippers, which is I think is just Australian, like a surf lifesaving sport. So you do an ocean swim, you do an ocean board, you run on sand.

I did long-distance running. That was kind of my thing. I did athletics, which is like track. I would substitute in rugby, when I was very young, for my brothers. My brother is a rugby player now, which is really cool. So I was just always very athletic as a kid.

It was learning how to throw a punch, what different types of punches to throw, learning how to throw it, learning how to fall correctly, take a hit, kick, knee — and then you slowly learn that. And then they’re like, “OK, now we’re going to do it in sequence.” And so you learn the sequence, and they’re like, “OK, now we’re going to bring in somebody else to do it with you, as opposed to just miming it.”

So you had to get very good at memorizing what was going on, and just trusting your body to move. It was creating muscle memory. And Mickey [Facchinello], who is my stunt double, she’s the real Supergirl. She’s a weapon. She’s like one of the best stunt women in the world. Nobody can move like her.

I think that was the thing that I got. Pain is a universal feeling. We’ve all felt pain. Whether you live very privileged-ly or you don’t, that’s a universal understanding. And I think I was able to connect with that pretty instantly.

“House of the Dragon” was more of an ensemble piece. I’ve never been No. 1 on a call sheet before. So all the responsibility that comes with that, I understood. I love to go to work, and be a team player. It’s not all about me. It takes so many people to make something, and so much time and effort goes into everything because we are set entirely off-world. So if Craig was like, give her a coffee cup, they’d be like, “Well, we need a coffee cup — for space!” To me, that’s the best part. You become this family. It’s this beautiful little family that you create, and it’s yours.

And then it gets released. I don’t usually watch what I’m in, but when you watch it, you cannot judge or see yourself or your performance for what it is, because you have that experience associated with it. So you watch it, and you’re like, “I remember on that day, I remember these people.” And then it’s in the world, and it’s somebody else’s.

We had an animatronic dog in the healers’ hub, which is where the dog is not very well. So we had an animatronic dog that breathed and that blinked. But yeah, I would just mime, which was a new experience of miming a dog licking your face. You surrender to the silliness of it.

I think you can feel it. You can feel the energy of the room, because there’s so many people who were there to ensure that it is going well. You know what I mean? But I think with this film, we all kind of knew very early on, like, “Oh, this is going to be special. We’re making something very special.”

Craig would come to me every morning and be like, “Milly, Milly, Milly!” and then like, “You have lines.” He would just come in with alts of lines, just little things to make it funnier. I just trust him. I really, really trusted him that he would tell the story in the best way that it could be told.

Well, I haven’t seen it. But in making it, we would play with the balance of serious and funny, and then sometimes we’d be like, “Let’s be really serious, and now let’s be really funny.” So they have all these choices to choose from when they edit it. I think the humor is essential to Kara — because she’s avoiding, she’s hiding, and that’s a tool that a lot of us use to mask and to hide, is to make light and joke about what is happening.

Honestly, I think, surprisingly she’s the closest to playing myself I’ve ever done. Which was really surprising to myself, to be like, “OK, this superhero is like the closest person I’m going to play to myself.” It was great. I was so fortunate. She was there. She was already there. I didn’t have to unlock it. She was just kind of at the surface.

I think for “Sirens,” that was the most removed from myself. Simone was, like, the opposite of me. But that was a lot of fun. It was really exciting to just disappear into somebody completely different. And Molly [Smith Metzler] is such a fabulous writer. She gave me so much to sink my teeth into.

I came up with a backstory that she was sent to Earth, and she doesn’t speak the language. She’s completely isolated. The only thing that she has is this dog. She meets Clark, and he gives her this role to play, and to be a part of. And it is that we are going to be the good guys. We are going to keep the city safe. She plays the part because I think she’s been through so much, and it’s really nice when someone just tells you what to do.

And then I think that she can’t handle it, so she leaves and she goes and gets drunk — because she can’t get drunk on Earth.

I feel like I wrote down she was at school. She’s a student, because she’s young. She’s 15 when she gets to Earth. So I reckon she’s in school.

I let myself feel what it would really feel like. I think that the way that that was achieved was through the writing. And I’m not saying it was dulled down in any way — I think that Ana really let us see her trauma. And I think it’s through the way that Craig is editing it and the way cinematically it is shot and the music and the pacing and all of these things help contribute to that.

Yes, and it was really nice, because in “Sirens,” for example, me and Meghann [Fahy] talk a lot about our history and our backstory. But when you’re given the opportunity to perform it physically — and to be physically in the space, and to construct a literal memory around it — when you perform those scenes later on reflecting on it, it’s such an aid. It really helps. I lived that in a way. I did it. I saw my mom. I have a person, a 3D human to associate all of this baggage that I have.

The whole film was pretty sequential, which was great.

I think I’m excited. I’m nervous. I understand now, because I’ve done “House of the Dragon,” the potentially temporary, maybe permanent, impact it’s going to have in my day-to-day life, and that is the fear. I’m really excited for everyone to meet her, and to see the film. I’m really, really proud of it. I think it sends such a good message. I think Craig has done a fabulous job. So I’m in two worlds about it, and also navigating this whole arena [makes a circular motion around our table] is new.

My first sitdown interview. And no one teaches you how to navigate these spaces, and still be you and still not get overwhelmed. And how do you manage that? And I don’t have friends in the industry. So I feel, what do I do and who do I turn to?

My therapist at the moment, but she can only do so much! So that’s something I’m really trying to seek out — a mentor and those relationships.

Yeah, because I’m not from an industry family at all. At all. I’m down on the other side of the world, so it’s an interesting place to be.

Well, I hope that people see it in the theater. I think they will? You’re meant to have a massive screen, and the sound is so important to the film. Music is at the center of that. I hope a lot of young girls see it. I hope a lot of young women see it. I hope new people who aren’t into superhero films go see it. And I hope it makes people think about who a female hero can be, and what stories they can tell. And that people will go see it.

I mean, that it won’t do well, obviously. That I will never work again! The obvious ones — that I’ll be rejected in some way. But I have a good support system around me in terms of my friends and family. So I think that’s what matters. This isn’t real life, you know?

Not everyone can like everything. And I think I got the greatest fulfillment and joy, and what I’m really taking away from this experience is how much I’ve grown as a person. I’m not really concerned with how it’s received at the moment, because I can’t control that.

And as an actor, you don’t have a lot of control. You don’t choose what you say, what you wear, where you stand, how it’s cut. So you have to surrender to trusting the people around you, and having faith that they are really going to tell this story in the best way that it should be told. So I don’t want to rile myself up about something that I cannot change.

I think, reminding myself of whose opinions I really care about. And just knowing that not everyone’s going to like you. You can’t get everyone to decide on dinner.

I didn’t even say “men!” I said “people.” And they got so angry. And I was like, “You’re proving my point. You’re proving my point!”

I kind of get it. Because I think that globally, we have lost who to trust and who to lead and who to tell us what to do, and what world to respond to and be absorbed in. Because governments systemically don’t do that. They don’t really have our best interests at heart, unfortunately. So people are looking to online forums to find that guidance, and to find those people to worship, in a way. I think it’s really hard to be universally beloved. And the people who have done that, I’m astonished at, because I think you eventually say something that not everybody agrees with. And then people zoom in on that, and they will pick you apart because of it. We don’t give them grace, unfortunately.

I guess women know that this is just how it’s always been, unfortunately. And I think when people are faced with an uncomfortable reality, they get reactive and defensive. And it’s a lot of people whose profiles have no photo, who are burner accounts. Or someone’s name and then, “Dad of four, Christian,” which is hilarious to me. But I mean, whose opinion do you really care about? If you’re pissing the right kind of people off? You’re doing OK.

It’s something I’m trying to get better at, because I grew up online.

I’m Gen Z! I grew up online, so I’m actively trying not to engage, although how could you not? Because sometimes people reinforce beliefs that you have about yourself, and you’re like, “No, now someone’s said it! It’s true.” And you’ve kind of got to remind yourself that it’s not and they’re just trying to hurt you because you’ve hurt them in some way. You’ve gotten to them a bit. But yeah, just being out in the world, interacting with the real world, just sitting at a café and watching people and reading alone — just being a participant in real life — has been really helpful.

I was very sporty. I wasn’t particularly academically clever. I was held back a year, and then I dropped out of school. I really struggled.

Repeated Year 2. And then I dropped out of school when I was 18. I think what drew me to acting, I didn’t know it at the time, was I had an inability to express myself fully within my life, within my relationships, I would hold things back. And acting gave me this outlet that was really safe that I could feel everything, that my emotional dysregulation was applauded, and was the best thing about me.

I did a few commercials. I was a hard worker as a kid. I worked in cafés, I worked in restaurants. There was a time where I was working in two cafés, and going to school at the same time somehow. School wasn’t a place for me, it didn’t fulfill me. And I really struggled to keep up and to focus and to comprehend what was going on a lot of the time, no matter how hard I tried. It was really frustrating, and then I got diagnosed with ADHD very recently. And I was like, “Oh! That’s why.”

I would go for a few days here and there, but “Upright” was the big one. Kate Mulvany played my mom on “Fighting Season,” and because of Australian budgets, we shared a trailer. There were three girls in one half-trailer, it was tiny. I didn’t really know what I was doing. And she saw me! She was one of the writers on “Upright.”

A few years after that, we went and got a drink or something, and she was like, “I wrote that for you.” I was like, “Wow.” So what I’ve learned from that experience, and I try to apply, is you have to let yourself be seen. Because you never know where it’s going to end up, and what relationship is going to become of that.

My agent said, “We have this untitled HBO project!” And I remember I got the sides, and I went with my friend, Will McDonald, who’s also an actor. And I was like, “Can you help me do the self-tape?” And it was a scene from “Game of Thrones” — I’d never seen “Game of Thrones!” I didn’t put two and two together.

He’s like, “This is a ‘Game of Thrones’ scene. Maybe they’re doing something with that.” Just the letter “R” — the role of “Young R,” Untitled HBO show. I was, at the time, throwing warehouse parties with my friends. We were making money from it. My boyfriend at the time lived in this warehouse, and we kind of became the warehouse kids. It was honestly some of the best times of my life. It was such a community. I was 19.

And we would work on the space, help clean up everything for free and then the owner would let us use it. So we would throw big, live music gigs, and do the visuals and rig the space up and sound check it and then have a gallery space. So you’d get a ticket, and you would go see the gallery and then you would go see live music, and then the gallery would be open for a week so you could buy art. And then we would make music videos for the people who were playing.

I had such a community in Australia, an artistic community, that I haven’t found since leaving. I went from that to COVID alone, London, shooting this huge thing.

I was washing dishes! I sound like a Roald Dahl character. I was living in the attic in my family home because we didn’t have enough rooms — it was so hot in there. And I was throwing these parties. I was a stick of a thing. I was washing these dishes so proudly and so terribly, and it was an open kitchen so everyone could see me.

I remember my agent called me and said, “Are you sitting down?” I was at my friend Ari’s house, and I just looked at him and was like, “Do we have any wine?” Because I couldn’t tell anyone at that point.

I did watch “Game of Thrones” at that point. I was in a hotel, quarantined for weeks with no window. And I watched “Game of Thrones.”

Never lived out of home before. Hadn’t really traveled. Most of my family didn’t have a passport. Living alone in London, it was very exciting, but it was very daunting. Didn’t know how to use the washing machine. I was learning how to look after myself properly: How do I function as a human? I was very independent, but that’s a whole other journey of having to live alone and not know anyone in a new city, and have this big pressure in how you deal with that stress.

I did, but it’s also that thing that happens on a job where the dynamic and friendship only exists in that beautiful time that you have making it, and then relationships change. But I made a circle of friends in London, slowly but surely.

I remember getting to set, like, “Oh my God, this is like nothing I’ve ever seen before.” I didn’t know that you could make movies like that. Australia doesn’t  have craft services. I shared trailers with five other women. Half trailers! Not even full ones. So I get to this, and I’m just like, “This is ridiculous.” And I just really wanted to be good. And I tried really hard.

In hindsight, it was done to serve the show and to make sure that I could do the best performance that I could do. And I have an acting coach now, which is great. But at the time, it was my second day on set, so my confidence was on the floor already, and it just instilled a belief I had about myself and my ability. And it took me time to put my pride aside, because I was 21. I was alone. I was just kind of like, “I can’t do this and they’re going to fire me.” And I just wanted to be really good.

Yeah, I knew. I moved to London a month after wrapping that show. I knew that my life was going to change, and I was still trying to get my footing into being a young person and figuring out, “Who am I? How do I want to be in the world? How do I look after myself?” And then also wrestling with, “OK, what is my career going to be, and what films do I want to make? What do I want to be a part of?”

I think for anyone who’s ever moved to the other side of the world, left your family behind — our construction of our identities is usually by the things that we associate ourselves with, right? It’s like the clothes I wear, the people I talk to, the coffee I buy, where I hang out.

Yeah, things changed. No one was really interested in me before. And slowly but surely, people were. And I really wanted to do theater, so I did “The Crucible,” and it was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. I didn’t call myself an actor until I’d done that play. I felt uncomfortable with it. I said, “I act!” I would never be like, “I’m an actor.”

What I’m learning through this is, like, what kind of life do I want to prioritize, OK? Do I purely take jobs driven by, “I want to be the greatest actor of all time?” No. Because my life is more important than that life. My day-to-day life will always take precedent over it. Because that’s where the joy lies, you know? And I also think it’s the duty of an actor to be a participant in the world. Talking to strangers. Most people are wonderful, you know?

It’s an interesting question, sometimes I look at people in the world and I’m like, “I would love your career,” but then I’m like, [whispers] “I would hate your life.” You know?

What Kara was going through that I was going through is she’s someone who has been at war with themselves. And I think that’s a very universal feeling — especially for women. And someone who is avoiding a responsibility that they have and someone who is avoiding the reality that they get to live out of fear. So it’s been a really surprising journey. I never thought taking on a superhero film would do that. But it has! And what a beautiful thing.

You’ve probably got a whole system about how to do this. It wouldn’t loosen them up? It would do the opposite?

You can try it on me next time, and I’ll tell you how it goes.

Her fearlessness. No, actually! Her work ethic. I worked really hard as a teenager.

My warehouse parties. It wasn’t really a failure, but it could have gone left or gone right, because we were making money. We were given 10 grand from the council to throw cultural events, and making this film collective, and it felt like that itch was really scratched. I was like, “Oh, I love this feeling as well.” The problem-solving and being creative, and then seeing people be in a space and find so much joy. And it’s so fun, and it’s active and it’s alive — it’s kind of similar to acting. So I’d say that.

Well, life went left instead of right. They fell apart.

Smoking. I was quite a well-behaved kid. I wish I was worse, looking back. I wish I behaved worse when I was a kid.

Ooh! I guess I feel like I need to prove to the people that I meet that I’m smart. I’m insecure about that.

I’m trying to think! I’m trying to find the right words. Probably being a good person.

Just showing up for people, having good morals. Sometimes you have to do not good things to do good things, and that’s in the film a lot.

I think by being isolated a lot. The world that we live in feeds and caters and profits off isolation. I would say whenever I feel like I’m in my own way, I know that I need to get out of the house or call someone. Yeah, get out, just get out in the world.

It’s so intense. Prep for acting is usually you alone in your room talking to yourself for hours at a time. So I can sit at a café, but it’s like I can’t work through a scene at a café. I’ve got to be alone in a space. And then you get distracted, because you have ADHD and you’re like, “Ah!” But then you get really hyper-focused, and it’s great.

Well, yeah, probably those group of kids, I would say. It was like a coming of age. We were all figuring out what we wanted to do. We all lived really close to each other. We would appear at each other’s houses unannounced. We would sit and have dinners. We would bump into each other. There was a sense of being a part of a community that you didn’t have to plan for or schedule. I would just walk into my friends’ houses unannounced all the time, and they would do it to me. And that was really lovely. Yeah, I really miss that.

It’s so weird talking about yourself all the time.

There are worse things we have to do. There’s worse things we have to do every day!