interviews

House Of The Dragon’s Milly Alcock on why Rhaenyra is a more rewarding heroine than Daenerys | sTYLIST

| christobelhastings

The breakout star of House Of The Dragon sits down with Stylist’s Christobel Hastings to chat female friendship, playing women who know what they want, and why Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen can claim to be a more rewarding heroine than the Mother of Dragons. Please note this article contains spoilers for the first episode of House Of The Dragon.

It’s not every day an up-and-coming actor lands a role in the biggest TV show of the year. A show whose epic predecessor dominated the Emmy races for the best part of a decade and produced a platinum-haired protagonist that became one of the most beloved in television history. On top of that, you then find out that you’re going to be playing the most important character in the whole saga. 

Such is the reality for Milly Alcock, the new star of House Of The Dragon, HBO’s hotly anticipated Game Of Thrones prequel. Set some 200 years before Daenerys Targaryen took to the skies to incinerate the capital city of King’s Landing, the new series finds the Targaryen dynasty on the brink of a bloody civil war known as The Dance of the Dragons. As the young Rhaenyra Targaryen, the princess whose succession kicks off the battle for the Iron Throne (and the only character whose face is plastered on the House Of The Dragon posters), the 22-year-old Australian actor is quite literally the face of the new fantasy series. So when I meet Alcock in central London before the London premiere of House Of The Dragon, there’s an unmistakable sense that she’s about to become a household name.

Read the full feature here.

THIS ‘TELEFRIENDING’ SERVICE IS GIVING LGBTQ ELDERS COMPANIONSHIP WHEN THEY NEED IT | VICE

| christobelhastings

Opening Doors London offers friendship to the most vulnerable and isolated in the community by way of a weekly visit from a volunteer.

Queers Built This is a project about queer inventiveness and DIY culture then, now, and tomorrow.

It seems somewhat counterintuitive that a membership organization called Opening Doors London would be thriving in the middle of a pandemic. Based in central London, the charity typically does exactly what its name suggests, hosting 45 different groups and activities for LGBTQ people over age 50 each month, from film nights and creative writing workshops, to community gardening days and coffee mornings. Perhaps the most vital of all its social offerings, though, is a befriending service that gives companionship to the most vulnerable and isolated in the community by way of a weekly visit from a volunteer.

Given that a recent Stonewall report found that lesbian, gay, and bisexual people over 55 are more likely to be single and live alone, the COVID-19 outbreak has left older LGBTQ people at an even greater risk of loneliness than their peers. By the time social distancing was enforced in the U.K. on March 24, however, Opening Doors had a creative solution to the suspension of its face-to-face services: a free telefriending service. The newly launched helpline quickly began offering around 470 people on the charity’s postal list a weekly phone call with a volunteer, giving increasingly isolated members a chance to chat with someone familiar.

Read the full article here.