“I duped this lovely man”: Emma D’Arcy’s Moment of Panic When Their Gender Identity Nearly Caused a Huge Problem At the Start of Their Career

Emma D’Arcy is widely known for their role as Rhaenyra Targaryen in HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel show House of the Dragon. Regardless of their popularity among the masses, they prefer keeping a low profile on social media and rarely do any interviews.

However, fans seem to have gotten lucky this time around. D’Arcy sat down for almost an hour-long interview, during which they discussed various things. They also recalled one moment of panic they had about having misled someone regarding their gender identity at the start of their acting career.

Emma D’Arcy Was Worried That They Had Duped an Agent About Their Gender Identity

Emma D’Arcy began their professional acting career with roles in several theatre productions. They spent years as a theatre artist appearing in plays like Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and Hal Coase’s adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway. They made their TV debut in 2018 with the BBC One and Netflix series, Wanderlust in the role of Naomi Richards.

2021 proved to be the turning point in their career when they were cast as Rhaenyra Targaryen in House of the Dragon, an adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s novel Fire & Blood. The pressure of starring in a series that had to be on the same level as Game of Thrones was a lot because a good performance would make their career and a bad one would ruin it. Suffice it to say that D’Arcy delivered a phenomenal performance.

In their first-ever podcast chat on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused, the Truth Seekers actor recalled that when they decided to get into the industry, they realized that needed an agent. In the process of getting one, they thought that they had accidentally misrepresented their gender identity as feminine because they had grown their hair and appeared like a woman actor.

Then I got an agent, which was great, but I suddenly had this panic that I had misled him and fettered myself to something I couldn’t live as. I had a real meltdown about it and didn’t know what to do because I felt like I had duped this lovely man and possibly gotten both what I wanted and didn’t want simultaneously.

At the time, D’Arcy struggled to navigate through it, but things seemed to have worked out themselves in their favor. They have even earned two Golden Globe nominations for their role as Rhaenyra Targaryen.

Emma D’Arcy Received Some Great Advice from Game of Thrones Star Emilia Clarke

Being a member of the House of Targaryen or even a citizen of Westeros, for that matter, is not an easy task. Luckily, D’Arcy got the chance to meet Emilia Clarke who also appeared as a member of the House of Targaryen house, Daenerys Targaryen, for all eight seasons of Game of Thrones.

During their conversation with Josh Horowitz, the Mothering Sunday actress reflected on that meeting before they began working on House of the Dragon.

Her advice was amazing, because it was both sort of broad, sort of embracing wisdom about like the sort of psychic change that one’s about to undergo. But also like practical stuff like, I really remember her saying like ‘your trailer is your space, decorate it, use it.’ You know, just like tiny things.

They said that Clarke had told them about the cons of wearing a wig for such long hours when they were shooting the show because members of the House Targaryen are known to have striking white hair.