Info
- Full Name: Emma Zia D'Arcy
- Date of birth: June 27, 1992 (34 years old)
- Location: Londres
- Country: UK
- Height: 1,71m
Emma D'Arcy has been active for 8 years, participating in 3 movies that average a 7.0/10 score.
Biography
Before claiming the Iron Throne, Emma D'Arcy painted. Quite literally. Born in the London borough of Enfield on 27 June 1992 and raised in the north of the capital, they seriously considered a career in contemporary art, studying Fine Art at the Ruskin School of Art at Oxford University and graduating in 2015, before theatre crossed their path for good. D'Arcy, who is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, needed only a few years to go from university stages to becoming one of the most recognisable faces on world television, and one of the few to have managed it entirely on their own terms.
From fringe theatre to television
Their roots are on the boards: they served as joint artistic director of the Forward Arena theatre company and appeared in productions such as 'The Pillowman' at the Oxford Playhouse, 'Romeo and Juliet' at the Southwark Playhouse and 'The Crucible' at London's Yard Theatre, combining acting with directing and set design in equal measure.
Television came calling in 2018 with 'Wanderlust', the BBC and Netflix drama in which they played the daughter of the therapist portrayed by Toni Collette, followed by the second season of the thriller 'Hanna' and the ghost hunting comedy 'Truth Seekers' (2020), from Nick Frost and Simon Pegg. On film they debuted in 'Misbehaviour' (2020), the story of the feminist protest at the 1970 Miss World contest, with Keira Knightley, and appeared in the delicate period drama 'Mothering Sunday' (2021), adapted from Graham Swift's novel, playing the doomed fiancée Emma Hobday alongside Colin Firth and Odessa Young.
Rhaenyra Targaryen, queen of Westeros
Everything changed in 2022 with 'House of the Dragon', the 'Game of Thrones' prequel that delivered the biggest premiere in HBO history. Taking over from Milly Alcock halfway through the first season, when the story jumped a decade, their adult Rhaenyra Targaryen, an heir ahead of her time fighting a system that refuses to accept her, won over critics and audiences alike, with Matt Smith's Daemon as uneasy ally and Olivia Cooke's Alicent as great rival.
D'Arcy has said they connect with Rhaenyra precisely through that struggle against gendered expectations. The role brought a Golden Globe nomination in 2023, in the best actress in a drama series category, making D'Arcy one of the first openly non-binary performers up for the award, and a second nomination in 2025 for the show's second season. The third chapter of the Dance of the Dragons, packing the battles that readers of George R.R. Martin had been waiting years for, premiered on 21 June 2026 to more than 21 million viewers for its opening episode, and its eight chapters keep Rhaenyra at war for Westeros through August.
The negroni sbagliato phenomenon
Their leap into pop culture even came with a cocktail shaker soundtrack. In October 2022, a promotional video for HBO Max in which D'Arcy confessed to Olivia Cooke a weakness for the negroni sbagliato with prosecco went viral around the world, sent demand for the drink soaring in bars, turned the phrase into one of the autumn's top searches and flooded social media with imitations of Cooke's now famous "oh, stunning", even inspiring Halloween costumes that year. Few marketing campaigns could dream of such reach.
Painting, theatre and a quiet life
Away from the spotlight, D'Arcy keeps their private life closely guarded: their partner is the director and screenwriter Thomas May Bailey, and the couple keep a deliberately low profile far from the red carpet circuit, and in interviews they would rather talk about painting, a habit they still keep up whenever the diary allows, about theatre and about the defence of trans and non-binary people, a cause for which they have become a visible voice within the industry.
The future looks vast: besides the Targaryen war, 2026 brings 'Digger', the new film by Alejandro González Iñárritu alongside Tom Cruise, their first great leap into Hollywood auteur cinema. From the Fine Art studios of Oxford to the throne of the Seven Kingdoms and the sets of the great directors: not bad for someone who started out painting canvases. And the Dance of the Dragons is not over yet.
Last appearances: movies and tv shows
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