Earlier this week, we found out who was nominated for this year’s Emmy Awards. HBO easily took the lead with 127 nominations, with shows like Succession, The Last of Us and The White Lotus getting lots of nods in particular.
HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon also got some nominations: eight, including one for Outstanding Drama Series. But none of the actors were recognized.
Which is nuts, if you ask me. There were several actors on the first season of House of the Dragon worth honoring with an Emmy nomination, and maybe even a win. So since the Emmys won’t celebrate them, I will:
Milly Alcock as Young Rhaenyra Targaryen
Game of Thrones was famous for launching the careers of several young actors, including Emilia Clarke, Kit Harington and Sophie Turner. House of the Dragon may do the same for its young cast, starting with Milly Alcock, who played Rhaenyra Targaryen for the first five episodes of the show, before it skipped ahead several years in time and she was replaced by Emma D’Arcy.
Alcock brought a lot of sensitivity to the role of a young woman who grew up very comfortable, and who suddenly knew tragedy when her mother died in childbirth. With her father having given up on the prospect of having a male heir, he names Rhaenyra as his successor to the Iron Throne. She embraces the role, even though it means an uphill battle against a group of entrenched elites who are determined to keep her away from responsibility.
On top of that, Rhaenyra finds her relationships changing — with her father, with her best friend, and with her uncle, who hopes to use her as a way to get close to power. Alcock balances all of this, showing us a woman who’s not as experienced as she wants but more confident than she should be. Her performance can be both heartbreaking and disarmingly joyous.
Alcock may not have gotten an Emmy nomination, but hopefully her work on the first season of House of the Dragon gets her plenty of work going forward.
Emma D’Arcy as Rhaenyra Targaryen
As much as I liked Alcock as Rhaenyra, I don’t think her being left out of the Emmy conversation is a travesty; she was very good, but so are the women nominated for Outstanding Actress and Outstanding Supporting Actress; not everyone can make the short list.
But Emma D’Arcy as adult Rhaenyra…them being left off is a travesty. D’Arcy was given a very high bar to clear and jumped over it with ease. We meet her older Rhaenyra while she’s giving birth to her third son, Joffrey; D’Arcy gives us a woman in the final pains of childbirth, a new mother deliriously happy to meet her new child, and a canny political player who knows she needs to display that her new baby is healthy to people at court, since her every move is watched for signs of weakness. And she does this in the space of one shot. It’s a hell of an introduction.
D’Arcy plays another, much more brutal birthing scene in the season finale. And then there’s her staredown with Alicent Hightower at Driftmark, and the final moment of the season where Rhaenyra glares at the camera after learning of her son Lucerys’ death, her eyes flame with war.
D’Arcy seemed to give us iconic moment after iconic moment. Their performance recalls Alcock’s work, but there’s more steel, more strength, which isn’t to say D’Arcy abandons Rhaenyra’s vulnerability. It’s a well-rounded, flexible performance that draws on deep wells of feeling, and very exciting to watch.
If future seasons of House of the Dragon are as good or better than the first, I have hope that D’Arcy will eventually take home some gold. Unfortunately, we can’t say that for Alcock, or for our next entrant:
Paddy Considine as King Viserys I Targaryen
If I had to choose just one House of the Dragon cast member to get an Emmy nomination — nay, an Emmy win — for the first season, it would be Paddy Considine. Although he had a long career before House of the Dragon, his performance as the beleaguered King Viserys I Targaryen should rightly make him a household name, because he’s just that good.
The first season of House of the Dragon takes place over a period of several years. Characters like Rhaenyra grow up to the point where the show must switch actors. That isn’t necessary for Viserys, but he still changes drastically. At the start of the show, he’s a middle-aged man in the prime of health. He falls victim to a wasting disease, and in his last appearance is a broken man who must use all of his strength just to hobble across a room.
Considine takes us on this journey every step of the way, portraying the advancing illness without getting hyperbolic or hammy. And although Viserys is known to waffle about important decisions, Considine finds what he really cares about, and makes us believe that he will fight to defend it.
King Viserys is a character who could come off unlikable, but Considine finds a throughline, a core of decency that earns our affection even as he’s unable to keep his family from tearing itself apart. He dies by the end of the season, but I have confidence that his shadow will hang over the rest of the series in the same way that Ned Stark’s hung over Game of Thrones. It’s a shame he won’t be honored for his efforts at the Emmys.
Matt Smith as Daemon Targaryen
Daemon Targaryen is a showy role. As Daemon, Matt Smith gets to joust with a guy in the first episode, fry people from the back of his dragon, kill his wife with a rock, and seduce his niece. Daemon is a reprehensible person, and yet with Matt Smith playing, somehow he came off as vaguely sympathetic?
The script allows Daemon redeeming moments, as well; we sense that he really does love his brother and niece, however many problems he causes for them. More than perhaps any other character, Daemon has a lot of contradictions, which gives Smith a ton to play with. Some actors might not be able to find a path through the fog, but Smith’s Daemon is on his way to becoming an icon.
Honorable mention: Olivia Cooke as Alicent Hightower
The other heavy hitter from the first season was Olivia Cooke as Alicent Hightower. Cooke is obviously talented — check out the scene where she comes at Rharnyra with a knife in “Driftmark” if you need proof — but I don’t think the scripts in season 1 quite equaled her abilities. Hopefully things will ramp up in season 2, because Cooke still has a lot more layers to show us.
The bad news is that none of these people will get Emmys when they’re given out on September 18. The good news is that some of them may get Emmys for these roles later. In the meantime, congrats to all the nominees, and to the cast of House of the Dragon, I hope you don’t lose too much sleep over the fact that you were robbed.
To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.
Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels