The actor on modernising the Greek myths, performing opposite a tennis ball, and how their love of a negroni went viral

Born in Enfield in 1992, actor Emma D’Arcy studied at Oxford’s Ruskin school of art, where they discovered their love of acting through taking part in student theatre. A string of acclaimed London stage roles followed, including Against (Almeida, 2017) and The Crucible (The Yard, 2019). Then, breakout success came with the role of brooding queen Rhaenyra Targaryen in Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon, with a performance that earned them critical success and multiple award nominations. D’Arcy currently stars at the National Theatre in Greek myth-inspired drama The Other Place, by writer-director Alexander Zeldin.

What was it about the script for The Other Place that lured you back to the theatre?
Technically speaking there wasn’t a script to say yes or no to. I’d known Alex [Zeldin] for a little while, and had the pleasure of workshopping his previous plays, so he was the draw. He tends to orchestrate quite protracted development processes, where a company will meet every so often over a period of months, then he’ll go away and write each time. He’s an artist in search of a degree of truth that I rarely find in theatre, but that I crave.

His work typically has been quite naturalistic, revealing the impact of austerity politics. This new play is a retelling of Sophocles’s Antigone – is it a big departure?
Not really. We’re looking for Greek scale within modern naturalism. What we found is that you can get away with quite a lot, which I think might mean we’re living in quite extreme times. The Other Place is about a blended family that reunites 10 years after the death of a patriarch, and what ensues is a kind of territory war fought over the past. What we’re exploring is the gap between a story and the truth, and the rot that’s able to grow there. Sophocles was made a general after he wrote Antigone, because it was considered that he had a complex understanding of the workings of power – I find that really extraordinary.

You started your career in small London theatres like Arcola and Theatre503 – do you ever miss those days?
I don’t know if I miss them, but those years were so foundational for me. I didn’t go to drama school, so it was a different kind of training – running a tiny fringe theatre company [Forward Arena], working six tessellating jobs. The work was of ultimate importance in my life, which is still true, but I was making much bigger sacrifices for it at the time. It was so hard when I was doing it, but it’s worse now. If we care about our arts sector, there is no choice but to invest in it.

You clearly love theatre, but is there anything about screen work that you prefer?
The durational nature of screen work, especially television, means you live a double life, which I love. If you go to work and spend 12 hours living with the psychic operating system of a different person – there’s a sense of another person who’s always in the back room.

I’m not that bothered about the gender of a character – I’m much more interested in the psychology

Compared with Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon is less gory, more moody. Which approach do you prefer? Do you long for more action scenes?
A privilege of my job is to work with extraordinary actors, and that’s where I derive a huge amount of energy and pleasure. I enjoy the familial confines of House of the Dragon, but all that said I’m desperate to beef up my Spotlight skill section and I do want a sword next season. I want a reason to see the stunt team. Both things are true.

What’s it like acting alongside dragons? How do you get into that headspace?
Often shooting on those special effect sequences is very bitty, very broken up, and sometimes I experience an imaginative ache – the work of conjuring is fatiguing. I’ve still got a way to go when it comes to tennis ball acting, which is where you’ll have the unseen object represented by a tennis ball. But one director on the show was on the microphone the whole time we shot, voicing the dragon, and I cannot say how useful and generous and brilliant that was.

You’ve had lots of plaudits in the role. Does it ever feel strange being nominated in the best actress categories [D’Arcy is non-binary]?
First, broadly, I resent being called upon as an authority on categories because I’m non-binary. What feels really apparent to me is that the current categorisation system is not serving the community of people it’s there to represent, but I don’t feel it’s my job to fix that.

Do you wish there were more non-binary roles?
I’m not that bothered about the gender of a character, I’m happy to play anything. I’m much more interested in the psychology or positioning of that person.

You’ve stood out on the red carpet for your bold style choices: Lurex suiting, tooth gems, stompy boots. What excites you about fashion?
I’m interested in identity and gender presentation as a set of ingredients that can be in flux, that can be played with, and that’s something that Rose [Forde, their stylist] understands so acutely. I get excited when I feel that I’m trialling personas, and thinking about how certain types of clothing interact with certain types of space. But in my day-to-day life I wear clothes primarily from charity shops, which I find very comforting. I like the idea that someone’s worn them in for me. I have a pair of boots that I bought secondhand that gradually fell apart. I had them cobbled about 20 times, and I eventually had them remade, so great was my love for them.

You went viral on TikTok for talking about your love of the cocktail negroni sbagliato. Do you have a new favourite drink?
It’s so weird, that whole thing feels like a dream, or a story I heard about someone else. Somehow I haven’t managed to incorporate it into the story of my life. But yeah, I… love a beer.