illy Alcock was at her family home in Petersham in Sydney when she received the text that would change her entire life. It was from American film director and CEO of DC Studios, James Gunn, and contained a link to an online article:
Photographed by Holly Gibson Styled by Naomi Smith Words by Jessica Bailey
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the Australian actor had landed the coveted role as superheroine Kara Zor-El in the upcoming blockbuster film Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. While Gunn may describe Alcock as “indomitable” — a fine choice for this headstrong and fearless wellspring of talent — the 25-year-old admits she felt anything but in those moments after receiving Gunn’s text. In fact, she says her first reaction was “absolute fear”.
“I was kind of in disbelief. I was initially like, ‘What have I done?’” Alcock jovially recalls to ELLE from her trailer on the set of Supergirl in London. “I then invited all my friends over to the house and we drank champagne.” Ten days prior to that text, Alcock had been in Atlanta screen testing for the titular role, something — despite her storied catalogue — she had never done. “During a screen test, you’re in a room with all the other women [vying for the same part] and you’re all dressed as the character. [The studio] will get you lined up in the makeup truck and put the same makeup on you all and then test you on a stage. For Supergirl, it was myself and another girl. It was really scary; I thought I was going to vomit! But it’s just fear! That’s what happens! This job has been a journey of overcoming my own fear.”
With a starring role in the Netflix series 'Sirens', as well as playing the titular character in the upcoming 'Supergirl' movie, Australian actor Milly Alcock is about to be everywhere
Milly
Directed by fellow Australian Craig Gillespie — of I, Tonya and Disney’s Cruella fame — Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow will release in June 2026, with the character briefly being introduced in Gunn’s Superman movie, in cinemas on July 10, this year. There’s little doubt this role will blast Alcock into a new stratosphere of fame, something she had a difficult time adjusting to when she starred as a young, feisty Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen in the fantasy series House of the Dragon.
“It was a really hard time. I felt like such an imposter — and I still do — but I think that’s healthy. I was 21 when I got that role,” Alcock says. “For me, the irony of becoming famous is that I do this job to disappear. I do it to hide. To suddenly be so visible, I was like, Oh no, I don’t want to be recognised! I want to get the Tube [in London] and be at the pub and be a normal person. You kind of realise you are public property, which is not a nice feeling. But then you remember you did this to yourself!
“[Back then] I didn’t cope. But I’ve gotten better at it. I think having that experience with House of the Dragon and now Supergirl …” her mind wanders before returning to the present. “There’s no handbook for all of this.”
Milly Alcock wears Louis Vuitton jacket, $11,500; Fruity Booty shorts, $84; stylist's own tights (worn throughout); Tiffany & Co. necklaces, from top: $31,300, and $134,000.
Alcock currently stars alongside Meghann Fahy (The White Lotus, Drop) and Julianne Moore in Sirens, the burning new dark comedy series streaming now on Netflix. From Maid creator Molly Smith Metzler (and based on the play Elemeno Pea, which she wrote during her time at Juilliard), Alcock plays Simone DeWitt, the prim and proper personal assistant to the enigmatic, and almost ethereal, socialite Michaela Kell (Moore). “Julianne is like that in real life. She kind of just, like, floats about the set,” Alcock quips. “Meghann is brilliant. She is so emotionally available. I adore her.”
Set over one eventful weekend, the five-part series centres on Devon DeWitt (Fahy) searching for Simone, her younger sister, only to discover she’s become ensconced in the strange and slightly disturbing world of a wealthy family high on stiff headbands, seating arrangements at galas, and who, as Devon notes, “dress like doilies”.
“When we meet Simone, we meet her in a place of, I almost want to say disguise,” Alcock says. “She’s embedding herself into this new world of wealth, status, class and respect — one that wasn’t part of her childhood. She’s playing this part of this perfect woman in the hopes of actually becoming her. But that’s not reality.”
Miu Miu shirt, $2370, skirt, $3050, briefs, $1120, socks, $665, and shoes, $1800; stylist's own bra top.
Adapting to life as a famous person is something Alcock is still working out. For now, she’s enjoying being able to live her life fairly freely with her friends and doesn’t find it too difficult to be her genuine self (although she admits this could change in the future). “I think I’m in this sweet spot right now,” she says. “I can be myself and I kind of use it as my superpower. It’s disarming. The thing that I’ve been discovering is people have a projection of who they think you are and the way that they think your life is. As soon as you’re honest and vulnerable with them, you kind of disarm them.
“Sometimes, [as a celebrity] you don’t get treated like a person — and that’s really hard,” she continues. “You get idolised and people fantasise what your life is, but the reality is, I still have to do washing up and call my mum more than I do. I still have bills to pay, and in my personal life I still don’t feel good enough. At the end of it, I’m still a person and I don’t want to be the ‘celebrity’ who feels inaccessible. I don’t want to be idolised.”
Prada dress, $3350; Tiffany & Co. rings, from top: $23,800, and $22,800.
Securing a few small jobs here and there — read: a Cadbury commercial and the part of ‘teen girl’ in Channel 10’s Wonderland in 2014 — Alcock nabbed credited roles in two 2018 miniseries, Fighting Season and Pine Gap. She also starred in Phoebe Tonkin’s directorial debut, a short film titled Furlough. But it was her turn as Meg, a lively and outspoken teenage runaway in Tim Minchin’s comedy series Upright, that garnered her proper attention and praise. And then, when House of the Dragon came knocking, she filmed seven episodes in London before flying home to film a second season of Upright. Her career was taking off.
The arts industry has had to work hard to recover from the pandemic. In 2023, it was hit again when the Writers Guild of America went on strike for 148 days, a period which overlapped with the American actors’ union SAG-AFTRA strike. Put simply, there wasn’t a lot of work out there — and it had Alcock, who had returned home to Australia, rethinking her future. “I’d been really struggling to get work for a year. It was a hard time. I was genuinely in a place where I couldn’t get a job and I thought, Ah, I can’t do it!”
So when the producers of Sirens called one day, inviting Alcock to send in a self-tape as part of an audition, she was excited. She spoke to the team about Simone and got a call soon after asking if she’d like the role — a process she describes as so quick she wondered if it was real. She worked with an acting coach twice a week, two hours per session, and a dialect coach to perfect her American accent. It paid off. Alcock — with her incredible breadth and depth of emotions — is brilliant as the complicated Simone.
“I did a lot of prep for this role, probably the most amount of prep I’ve ever done for something,” she explains. “The older I get, I’m discovering that this [whole acting thing] isn’t a fluke. It isn’t like a crazy surprise thing that is happening. I have to take agency within it and not run away and hide because it’s scary. I studied a lot for Sirens, so that when I got to set, I didn’t have to catch up, I didn’t have to learn. Simone was there.”
Acne Studios dress, price on application; Stella McCartney shoes, $1050.
Sirens is streaming now; see Superman in cinemas July 10, and Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow in June 2026.
Wearing louis vuitton and tiffany and co
This story appears in the june 2025 Issue of
Growing up with her mum, dad and two brothers in Sydney’s Inner West, Alcock fondly remembers simpler times with her neighbourhood friends. As she recalls, they would play outside until the streetlights came on, never wear shoes and would visit the local pool on weekends. It was a beautiful little reprieve from the struggles Alcock experienced in school. Held back a year in Year 2, and dropping out of Newtown High School of the Performing Arts in her final year to pursue acting, it wasn’t that Alcock wasn’t bright, it was just that she “tested badly”.
“I would be the kid who studied for hours and hours and would barely pass. It was really frustrating,” she says. “I grew up my whole life thinking I was stupid! And then one day I was like, No, my brain just works differently. I was hopeless at writing essays in exams; I didn’t test well. Acting was the only thing I was good at.”
Mad
about
t first meeting, it could be assumed Alcock is nothing like Simone. Sitting in her movie trailer in an olive-green tracksuit, the actor is super down-to-earth, hellbent on giving thoughtful answers and endearingly fidgety. Her blonde hair,
dishevelled — it is her day off from filming, after all — is out, then swiftly swooped up into a butterfly clip, then out again, then under a baby blue cap. In all this movement and rawness, Alcock doesn’t seem the stiff headband and pearly lip gloss type, so when she admits she’s more like Simone than one would imagine, it’s surprising.
“I think we all have a bit of Simone in us in the way that most of us are playing a part in our day-to-day lives. It’s really hard to be genuine, to be vulnerable and to be earnest,” Alcock says. “We get seduced by these alternative lives thinking they are going to alleviate us from the struggle within our present ones. I can relate to the way Simone seeks value. Like, through work or through parents or whatever. I do have empathy for her.
I can see myself in her in a weird way.”
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What isn’t there just yet is a comfort in her rising profile. For now, Alcock is trying to troubleshoot the incredible and inevitable jolt her life will take when Supergirl soars into cinemas. Like her neighbourhood friends in Petersham, Alcock is cultivating friendships in her new home of London. People who are in similar positions to her.
“I need that community of people who understand what it’s like to have this life because I feel uncomfortable talking to my friends about it,” she says. “The problems are so different. I’m talking to my therapist about it, and just trying to reach out to other women, which is scary. It’s hard, it’s weird.”
It’s true, isn’t it? Her vulnerability does disarm you. And therein lies Milly Alcock’s superpower.
Talent Milly Alcock
Editor Jessica Bailey
Fashion Director Naomi Smith
Photographer Holly Gibson
Videographer: Celine Hong
Writer Jessica Bailey
Hair Halley Brisker
Makeup Talia Sparrow
Fashion Assistants Jordan Boorman and Rebecca Bonavia
Manicure Jasmin Samavati
Creative Producer Camille Peck/ Eminente Creative Production
LEFT Prada dress, $3350; Stella McCartney shoes, $1050. RIGHT Loewe dress, and shoes, both price on application.
LEFT McQueen jacket, $4310, shirt, $5060, and pants, $1865; Tiffany & Co. earrings, $57,500. RIGHT Louis Vuitton jumper, $3850, and dress, $4550.
LEFT Stella McCartney coat (and opposite), $4805; Tiffany & Co. necklace, $105,000. RIGHT Fruity Booty top, $135, and shorts, $84; Chanel boots, $3920.
Stella McCartney shoes, $1015 (worn throughout); stylist’s own hosiery (worn throughout).
RIGHT Louis Vuitton jumper, $3850, and dress, $4550.
LEFT Stella McCartney coat, $4805 (worn throughout); Tiffany & Co. necklace, $105,000. RIGHT Fruity Booty top, $135, and shorts, $84 (worn throughout); Chanel boots, $3920 (worn throughout).
Milly Alcock wears Louis Vuitton jacket, $11,500; Tiffany & Co. necklaces, from top: $31,300, and $134,000.
LEFT Louis Vuitton jacket, $11,500; Tiffany & Co. necklaces, from top: $31,300, and $134,000. RIGHT Chanel top, $4520, and skirt, $46,050.
