Emily Carey received a "huge amount" of "borderline homophobic hate" over her role in 'House of the Dragon'. The 21-year-old actress played the young Alicent Hightower in the first season of the 'Game of Thrones' prequel and she faced a backlash from fans who accused her of trying to "force [her] lesbianism" on her alter ego when she and co-star Milly Alcock, who played the teenage Rhaenyra Targaryen, spoke about the "romantic subtext" between their alter egos. Emily told Independent.
co.uk: "As a queer person, I received a huge amount of borderline homophobic hate on the internet. “I had a lot of comments that I’d forced my lesbianism on these characters, which is just absurd, in my opinion.
All we said was that if you wanted to see this potential spark between them, you could. Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion. "I mean, it wasn’t something we were ever consciously playing.
It wasn’t something where we thought, ‘Hey, let’s throw this in. This will be fun.’ "It was just something that we spoke about, as we felt this sort of palpable tension between the two characters.
“Alicent and Rhaenyra are 14, they’re in this world that, by the way, isn’t even real, it is all very made-up...
and they don’t know what this means. A lot of the characters struggle to contend with the idea of love because, especially Alicent, she’s married someone who she’s not necessarily in love with but she holds some love for him, .