Emma D'Arcy Finally Feels Like a Citizen of Westeros

Emma D’Arcy is a masterfully introspective person. The 32-year-old actor—who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns—chooses their words with precision and speaks with a level of insight that one imagines you only gain with years of highly effective therapy. For D’Arcy, it seems it was their upbringing, one of artistry and commitment, that helped prepare the actor to stay so calm and humble despite being the lead on one of television’s biggest shows.

D’Arcy grew up outside of Gloucestershire in southwest England, raised by two artists, if not in occupation, then in craft. Their mother was an illustrator, their father an “obsessive painter, photographer, maker” with a “fundamental, daily need to make pictures” without any plans to ever display them. The “tiny house” in which D’Arcy grew up quickly became stuffed with the results of this artistic expression. “We sort of lived on top of my dad’s visual outpouring.” D’Arcy considers, for a brief moment, if that obsessive gene was passed down to the next generation, but decides against it. “I would describe myself as a good worker, a committed worker, a person for whom one's work is bound up in their identity,” they tell W over Zoom. “But I probably wouldn't describe myself as an obsessive.”

Still, artistry runs in the family. For most of their young adult life, D’Arcy was on the fine art path, engaging in art foundation at school, where they found an identity among the paint cans and cameras. “Foundation really gave me a second chance at building a personality,” they say. “It was the space in which I was invited to learn and think about things critically.” After high school, D’Arcy went on to study fine art at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford. It was at that time that they were drawn into the popular theater scene at school, using their artistic talents to design and build sets for various plays around campus. “I really enjoyed being in the community of theater makers at university,” they recall. “So I started doing some performance as well and eventually, theater sort of won over my attention and my degree.”

D’Arcy attributes this change in trajectory not only to the enticing nature of theater but also to the increasingly isolating experience of fine art. “I don’t do well on my own,” they admit. “I could see that if I did stay in the visual arts, I was looking at several years alone in a studio. I need to be in a communal space.” It was in the theater scene that D’Arcy found what they sought.

Now, D’Arcy feels right at home on the set of House of the Dragon, the Game of Thrones prequel series that tells the story of the Targaryen civil war known as the “Dance of the Dragons.” They play Rhaenyra Targaryen, named successor to the Iron Throne by her father, the late King Visery. Upon his death, Viserys’s second wife (and Rhaenyra’s childhood friend), Alicent, places her son, Aegon, on the Throne, challenging Rhaenyra’s claim. D’Arcy only appeared in the latter half of season one of the series, which premiered in 2022, but this time around, they have fully come into their own as the usurped queen.

If Rhaenyra seems more sure of herself in season two, it’s likely because D’Arcy does as well. “I certainly felt some trepidation the first time, going to this much-beloved site of Westeros,” D’Arcy recalls. “You need an incredibly good reason to make a return journey after the success of a show like Thrones.” D’Arcy admits to “feeling a bit like a visitor” in George R.R. Martin’s world at first. After taking on another full season, one in which the show found its footing in a way it failed to in season one, D’Arcy has been able to find confidence within this behemoth of intellectual property. “I feel like I finally got my passport,” they say with a laugh.

It helps that in many ways, Dragon can stand on its own. Yes, it shares a setting, family names, and histories with Thrones, but it’s exploring themes that the blockbuster show barely touched upon during its eight-season run—namely, those of gender and womanhood in a medieval, patriarchal society like Westeros. In Dragon, Rhaenyra loses her claim to her throne because she is a woman, and even those who continue to support her do so out of obligation to an oath rather than true loyalty or enlightenment about gender politics.

Opposite Rhaenyra is Alicent, portrayed in season two by Olivia Cooke. D’Arcy and Cooke play friends-turned-rivals on TV, but in real life, they are simply the former, often going viral for their chemistry during press interviews. But when they aren’t chatting about their favorite mixed drink, the two actors are discussing the dynamics of gender and power in the series. Throughout season two, we see both Rhaenyra and Alicent leading small councils yet still being continuously undermined by men at every turn. “Both women are seeking to hold some sort of power within a system that was not built to deliver it to them,” D’Arcy says. The actor admits that often, such treatment, fictionalized or not, could get to them after a long day of filming. “It's like Emma inside Rhaenyra, experiencing frustration at the incapacity of the character to find greater agency within those situations,” they say. “Liv and I both had the experience of feeling incredibly tired at the end of those days.”

Those scenes weren’t the only tough days on set. In the first episode of season two, “A Son for a Son,” Rhaenyra mourns not only the death of her father but also her young son, Lucerys. Despite barely speaking in the episode’s 60 minutes, D’Arcy still expresses their character’s immense grief to the audience. “I actually love that she says so little,” D’Arcy says. “It illustrates her paralysis. Rhaenyra is totally stuck—she's without direction. She’s non-verbal because there's no want or desire in her.”

D’Arcy could relate to this, as the actor also lost someone close to them not long before production began on season two. While they tried to “displace” those feelings of grief, Rhaenyra’s experiences forced them front and center: “There is something strange about being invited to meditate on that which you are simultaneously trying avoid.” D’Arcy, though, managed to use the character to help them heal. “I'm very aware that people lose loved ones all the time and have to go to work the next day,” they say. “By a strange twist of fate, my job invited me to reflect on the things happening both to my character and me.”

D’Arcy’s ability to remain professional in the face of personal pain proves their dedication to the craft, but it can have its drawbacks. When the actor first entered the world of entertainment, they decided to present as a cisgender woman. “I just didn't know if it was possible to be an actor and not be cisgendered,” they say. At the time, their desire to act was so strong that they were willing to prioritize their career over everything else. Looking back now, D’Arcy calls that thought process “naive and a little bit foolish.” While not an obsessive like their father, D’Arcy does admit to being “quite driven and focused,” sometimes to their detriment. “I suppose when it comes to my work and when I'm in that mindset, I can be quite good at sacrifice. But you can't live in that. You can't stay there the whole time.”

D’Arcy also subconsciously feminized their appearance at the beginning of their career. When they finally signed with an agent, though, something didn’t feel right. “I felt like I had tricked him,” D’Arcy says. “I had a huge, quite affecting panic about it.” They realized living as a woman was not sustainable, and now, they’re glad they were truthful about their identity, both to their agent (whom D’Arcy still works with today) and the world. “I thought recently about how annoying it would be if I hadn't decided to marry my personal and professional lives,” they say. “Living a double life would be extremely difficult.”

Even with the huge profile of the Game of Thrones universe, for the most part, the actor’s day-to-day life has not changed. It helps that they don an impossibly long, blonde wig when portraying Rhaenyra, making D’Arcy almost unrecognizable when living their life with a more cropped style around London. D’Arcy appreciates this, as privacy was a major concern when signing on to Dragon’s first season. In fact, D’Arcy made a pros and cons list to decide about the role, a process that, in hindsight, D’Arcy realizes was driven by fear.

“I can sometimes be quite a fearful person, and there were definitely elements of the job I found frightening.” Two seasons in, and D’Arcy is a pro, with a well-worn passport to Westeros, a handle on the sometimes-rowdy fanbase, and a grasp on Rhaenyra that will only deepen as the show enters its upcoming third season. “As with so many things, the reality is a lot less extreme or much more manageable than what we catastrophize about.” There’s that introspection again.