House of the Dragon star Milly Alcock has more than doubled her Insta following since Sunday

You often hear of actors recanting the moment their lives changed overnight after their projects exploded, earning them a deluge of fans.

And House of the Dragon star Milly Alcock appears to be in the eye of that life-altering storm as she has more than doubled her Instagram following since the show’s premiere on Sunday (21 August).

The 22-year-old plays the younger version of Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, who takes centre stage in the first half of the HBO fantasy series. Watch her in the show below:

Now, following the GoT prequel’s premiere over the weekend, the Aussie actor has amassed 70,579 new followers on her Instagram, taking her from 58,421 to an online community of 129,000, at the time of writing.

According to Social Blade, a website that tracks social media statistics and analytics, that number is only going one way, and that’s up as she is averaging 1,007 new followers a day at the time of writing.

It’s likely Alcock’s new-found global stardom has yet to hit her as she revealed she was ‘washing dishes in a restaurant’ when she landed the dream role.

In an interview with Stellar magazine, she shared: "I never thought this would happen to me.

"I was washing dishes in a restaurant, living in my mum's attic. This doesn't happen to people like me, so it was incredibly quick."

Speaking about the moment she learned she had landed the part, Alcock recalled: "I froze, and took a deep breath and said to my friend, 'Do you have wine?' Then I called my mum."

Before being cast in House of the Dragon, the star had appeared in various Australian television shows, most notably the award-winning Australian drama Upright opposite Tim Minchin.

She has also starred in several films including The School, The Gloaming, and 2019's Reckoning.

Based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, the new 10-part series is set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones and charts the bloodiest civil war in the history of the Seven Kingdoms. 

Along with Considine’s King Viserys, the fifth king of the Targaryen dynasty to rule the Seven Kingdoms, and Smith’s Prince Daemon, the cast also includes the likes of Olivia Cooke as Princess Rhaenyra's best friend Alicent Hightower. 

The show also features the likes of Steve Toussaint, Eve Best, Sonoya Mizuno, Fabien Frankel, Rhys Ifans, Bethany Antonia, Phoebe Campbell, Emily Carey, Harry Collett, Ryan Corr, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jefferson Hall, David Horovitch, Wil Johnson, John Macmillan, Graham McTavish, Ewan Mitchell, Theo Nate, Matthew Needham, Bill Paterson, Phia Saban, Gavin Spokes, and Savannah Steyn.  

UK viewers can catch House of the Dragon on Sky Atlantic and NOW, while the show is available in the US on HBO and HBO Max.