Gayle Rankin Was ‘Struggling Every Day’ to Define Alys Rivers

Spoilers for House of the Dragon season two episode five, “Regent.”

Everyone on House of the Dragon is deceitful to some degree. Amid the fog of war, Aemond tries to kill his older brother Aegon to steal his throne. Mysaria returns to her White Worm ways, fomenting discontent among the smallfolk about Team Green. Daemon lies about his war crimes to bend the Riverlands lords to his will. But only Alys Rivers, known in Fire & Blood as the “witch queen” of Harrenhal, is flat-out opaque.

Is Alys a woods witch, a bastard of House Strong, or both? Is she a 400-year-old relying on virgin-blood baths to stay young? Are Daemon’s visions caused by her potions? What exactly is the nature of her connection to the infamously cursed Harrenhal? We’ll get answers eventually, actress Gayle Rankin says. But for now, she plays Alys like she owns the place with a hard edge and a chin-up defiance inspired by Rankin’s own Scottish and Celtic heritage as well as pagan goddesses, the Greek priestess Cassandra, and Joan of Arc. The fact that Fire & Blood’s narrators and cited sources are mostly men trying to wrap their heads around Alys gave the actress room to play with the character’s dance among fact, faction, and infamy.

“I’m really interested in playing with the idea of perception, in women who were identified as being witches and around whom there was a lot of controversy and confusion and questions,” Rankin says. “Even plays like The Crucible — those were quote-unquote normal women who were identified as being witches.”

Alys’s motives are unclear, and her expanded interactions with Daemon are a change from Fire & Blood, in which all that’s written of their relationship is “Whatever her powers, it would seem Daemon Targaryen was immune to them, for little is heard of this supposed sorceress whilst the prince held Harrenhal.” (She’s also seemingly no longer a wet nurse with breast milk “that flowed so abundantly” it “nourished countless babes born of other women at Harrenhal.”) Yet her willingness to call Daemon on his shit — Rankin says “no” ten times when I ask whether Alys cares about his obsession with being called “Your Grace” instead of “my prince” — and her unapologetically spooky aura give the character a decidedly different feel from the original in George R.R. Martin’s source material. “She’s kind of like the First Lady of Harrenhal, if there was a government,” Rankin says. “She’s spent a lot of time figuring out how to be by herself, but that’s like a blessing and a curse after 400 years.”

Whether Alys is causing Daemon’s visions or just intuiting that he’s having them, she quickly identifies that he’s made a lot of mistakes with the women in his life. She calls him out on how his strategy for the Riverlands is hurting women in particular. Does Alys have a guiding philosophy connected to a kind of feminism? 
Yes, absolutely. It’s hard not to. It’s the perspective I come from as a person on the planet. As an artist, I’m really curious about uplifting women and disenfranchised peoples of all kinds. That’s part of what this show is about, if this is like the female Game of Thrones. Olivia and Emma do an incredible job of paving the way for nuanced stories about women in power, and Alys comes in as an extra foil to that narrative.

She doesn’t bow to Daemon. The Strongs don’t seem to notice her; there’s a moment where Ser Simon looks at her and seems confused. Whether the Strongs see her at all isn’t explained. How did you shape her physical presence? 
There’s no magic other than dragons at this point, so we were really experimenting. I was able to allow it to come from me, and however other actors are going to respond is on them. A lot of that was gut instinct. I think it’s really cool that people are reading into that in so many different ways, because that’s part of what the character is there to do: provoke questions. Questions about how we see women and women with a kind of unidentifiable power in our world — which could be any woman, to be honest.

There’s so much ambiguity, right? Whether she is inspiring Daemon’s dreams, whether the members of House Strong acknowledge her as a bastard related to them. When you’re playing with that much mystery, how do you define the boundaries of the character for yourself? 
It’s a thing I was struggling with every day. How do you play someone who is mysterious? How do you ground them, and make her a person with wants and needs and desires? As this season unfolds, you start to feel like there’s a story there, a person and a history. I know it. It was really personal. That was a lot of work I had to do privately, and hopefully we’ll feel and see more specific details at some point.

What kind of stuff do you think Alys got up to in Harrenhal before Daemon showed up?
I do believe she’s a maester of sorts, and a healer in many senses of the word. Whether or not Alys’s potions are actually potions, she’s kept Harrenhal on its feet for generations, in terms of just like, keeping people alive — or not.

I do love the line where she says the previous maester “just never settled in.” 
Well, there wasn’t enough room, you know. [Laughs.] It’s a pretty hard job keeping Harrenhal afloat, keeping everybody safe and well, and keeping control. It’s a powerful space in and of itself, maybe one of the most powerful, and to have this woman running it, essentially, is really fascinating to me. She’s kind of like the First Lady of Harrenhal, if there was a government. She knows all the really wonderful spots to go swimming and do fun, pleasurable things. She’s spent a lot of time figuring out how to be by herself, but that’s like a blessing and a curse after 400 years.

You’ve said Alys “desires to be known,” and that’s partially why she makes this overture to Daemon. Did you see that as a desire to be known personally, or she wants to be recognized for what she’s done to keep Harrenhal going?
It’s both, but they’re in competition with one another, which I think is inherently female. How are we to be as women in this world? Are we allowed to be vulnerable and also ambitious? Is there room for them in our society? There’s something about her that’s trying to prove maybe there is, but it’s a fight.

The Harrenhal set is so detailed. Was there a specific aspect of the set design you connected with?
My workshop was so specific. I hope we get to go back there. I loved how tactile it was — I had a bunch of ingredients that I could build the potion with. It was very comforting and it made me feel like I had been there for centuries. It felt very lived in and feminine, like a sanctuary, you know? This tells me something about this person, that they have fought hard to build something for themselves, an identity.

What was the substance you were working with your mortar and pestle? 
It was blackberries and crushed-up rose petals and some other dried fruit, I think dried oranges. It got to a point after so many takes where I was like, I have to stop adding things into this, I really don’t know what’s in this now, which is amazing for the scene. I’ll let the audience decide whether or not it’s on purpose that she lets Daemon see that she’s tasting it first. But who knows what Alys can withstand? It’s an interesting question about daring him on and seducing him in some way, too.

There is a fan theory that Alys and the Red Priestess Melisandre from Game of Thrones are the same characters. Do you have a reaction to that? 
I would say that there are no other characters that have been repeated in the House of the Dragon world, so I’m not sure why we would start now.

You’ve talked about feeling drawn to green as a color, partially because of your birthstone, peridot. Is there a specific color that you assign to Alys? 
Purple. The dress I wear — that’s like her uniform, really — is purple. Purple is actually quite a royal color, and I like it because it’s neither green nor black, and it’s not attaching itself to any side. Alys has her own identity and she travels in some ways right down the middle. It’ll be interesting to see where we go in terms of her color palette.

Harrenhal is implied to be incredibly haunted. Do you have a favorite piece of haunted-house media?
I recently rewatched the Kristen Stewart movie Personal Shopper by Olivier Assayas. That movie undoes me in a bit of a way; there’s something so grounded and realistic about it that I could imagine that happening to me. There’s something weirdly Harrenhal-y about it, too, because of the water and the kind of damp, echo-y, very subtle beginning of the presence.

Now I’m going to imagine a world in which Alys is a personal shopper.
She’s just house-sitting at Harrenhal, waiting for the Celine to arrive.