DC’s new Supergirl, Milly Alcock, on embracing the heroine’s darker edge — and sneaking hero “House of the Dragon” costar onto set
DC’s new Supergirl, Milly Alcock, on embracing the heroine’s darker edge — and sneaking hero “House of the Dragon” costar onto set
Nick RomanoWed, June 24, 2026 at 6:34 PM UTC
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Milly Alcock as Kara Zor-El in 'Supergirl'Credit: DC Studios and Warner Bros. PicturesKey Points -
Supergirl star Milly Alcock and director Craig Gillespie talk about embracing the darker edge of the DC heroine.
Alcock shares how she snuck House of the Dragon star Fabian Frankel onto set: 'He almost got in trouble.'
"Audience members will feel that this is a superhero that reflects who they are as opposed to who they're told to be."
Last year at Leavesden Studios, as House of the Dragon filmed season 3, showrunner Ryan Condal saw Kara Zor-El fly.
His former star, Milly Alcock, made famous by her role as young Rhaenyra Targaryen on season 1 of the Game of Thrones prequel, filmed large portions of her titular role in this summer's Supergirl at the site of the Hollywood hub in Watford, U.K. (HBO's Harry Potter TV series also set up shop deeper into the grounds.)
"I saw her flying on the backlot. They were doing this big thing, and I could kind of see it from my office," Condal tells Entertainment Weekly. "They sent her a picture…Basically, I was just standing in the throne room, like, 'You're in the Supergirl costume!'"
Craig Gillespie, the director of Supergirl, remembers what scene Condal refers to: a skirmish involving the Kryptonian strongwoman and the Brigands, an all-male group of bandit bros. And, as Alcock says, she got to do "a s--- ton" of the stunts herself.
"It was the largest stage in Leavesden," Gillespie, known for films I, Tonya and Cruella, says in a separate conversation with Alcock. "And then we built a whole alleyway out the doors."
Milly Alcock as Rhaenyra Targaryen, Fabien Frankel as Ser Criston Cole on 'House of the Dragon' season 1Credit: Ollie Upton/HBO
"And then Craig somehow managed to configure — was it eight miles? … Eight miles of cable for a massive fight sequence on that stage," the actress adds.
Alcock was admittedly tempted to sneak back over to House of the Dragon just to see what her alma mater production was up to, but as number one on the call sheet for the DC Studios event film, her dance card was quite full. And yet, "I snuck Fabien on [the Supergirl] set one day, and he almost got in trouble," she shares.
Fabien Frankel currently stars on House of the Dragon as Ser Criston Cole, a knightly role he originated opposite Alcock in the drama's early days. "Fabien was pretending to be Natalie, the makeup artist, because Natalie was our makeup artist on House of the Dragon," the actress recalls. "But Craig loves to do this amazing thing where he doesn't cut. So we rolled for like 20 minutes, and Fabien was just there, stuck in that lock-in."
It all worked out. Condal only beams when talking about the Aussie star's ascent. "I'm very, very proud of her," he remarks. "It's amazing what's happened to her in her career. I take great pride in it."
Alcock is that type of cool girl A-lister-in-the-making to take on a role like Kara Zor-El. Based on Tom King (writer) and Bilquis Evely's (artist) Woman of Tomorrow comic run, this Supergirl isn't the same kind of superhero a modern movie-going audience has become accustomed to. "Messy" is a word that comes up often.
Milly Alcock on set of 'Supergirl' with director Craig GillespieCredit: Parisa Taghizadeh
When we first see her on screen, she's off partying across the galaxy — specifically on planets that orbit red suns, with the kind of solar energy designed to weaken Kryptonians. It's the only way she can actually feel the effects of alcohol and drugs.
"I read the first two scenes that Ana had written and the extremes are there," Gillespie comments of screenwriter Ana Nogueira's work. "The opening scene is very intense." He refers to the moment Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts) slaughters the family of Ruthye Marye Knoll (Eve Ridley), setting the young alien girl on a revenge mission.
"And then we go into this very irreverent drunken scene with Milly's character," the filmmaker continues, "but there's a lot of pathos in it, there's a lot of pain, and then there's humor, and then there's a recklessness. All of that's in this opening scene, and I was immediately in."
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True Grit was a clear inspiration for the original comic, as Ruthye tasks Supergirl with the job of taking out Krem on her behalf. There's a little John Wick thrown in, too. On their first encounter, Krem poisons Krypto, Kara's super-dog, leaving her with only three days to retrieve the antidote.
The film maintains a dark undertone. The intergalactic odyssey forces Kara to confront the lingering trauma of witnessing the destruction of her entire world, Krypton, before her arrival on Earth.
Milly Alcock's Kara Zor-El in 'Supergirl' with KryptoCredit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
"The biggest battle that she's had to face is with herself," Alcock says. "There's something incredibly accessible within that; there's something incredibly relatable within that. I think that audience members will feel that this is a superhero that reflects who they are as opposed to who they're told to be. I think that that's really refreshing.
The casting of Supergirl came down to Alcock and Meg Donnelly (The Winchesters), who's notable within DC for voicing the heroine in the various animated movies. Other stars reportedly in the running included Cailee Spaeny (Beef season 2) and Emilia Jones (CODA).
Alcock met with Peter Safran, the co-head of DC Studios with James Gunn, at the end of 2023. Safran relayed that they were thinking about making a Supergirl movie. She went back home to Australia when she officially got the call asking to audition with a self-tape. The actress, who's since appeared in Sirens on Netflix, recorded two scenes: the bar scene where Supergirl drunkenly defends Ruthye from a brute, and a flashback scene speaking Kryptonian with David Krumholtz as Kara's father, Zor-El, back on Krypton.
"I was shocked when she came in that day," Gillespie remarks of the latter, which involved "four pages" of Kryptonian dialogue.
The director knew there was a film to be made between Nogueira's script and Alcock's casting. "It was a tone that I knew that I was very comfortable with, and particularly knowing that it was going to be Milly in that role," he explains. "In her work, I've seen [those] complicated, emotional, accessible performances that can be very funny and tragically comic at times. She does such a beautiful, nuanced job with that."
Milly Alcock as Rhaenyra Targaryen on 'House of the Dragon' season 1Credit: Ollie Upton/HBO
Alcock's experience on House of the Dragon proved to be a plus. David J. Peterson, the linguist who helped create the High Valyrian language spoken by the Targaryens, also worked on developing Kryptonian for Supergirl.
"I feel like Kryptonian was harder," the star admits. "I feel like High Valyrian was more Portuguese or Spanish. There were a lot of rolled Rs. There was a natural cadence that came out. High Valyrian felt like a different set of muscles, but the process of learning was the same."
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When it comes to flying, however, House of the Dragon had Supergirl beat. It's the difference between holding onto a mechanical buck on a soundstage with floor-to-ceiling LED lights for her dragon-riding scenes and wire work for solo flight as Kara.
"Wire work's just brutal," Alcock says. "There's something really constricting about being in a harness and hanging. You can't stand or sit very comfortably. If you have to go to the bathroom, you have to take off the costume and the harness and then the under costume. So it's just very fussy."
Supergirl opens in theaters this Friday.
on Entertainment Weekly
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