Emily Carey
Emily Carey is an actor, born 2003.
An entire early career spent being the younger version of somebody else. Carey started on stage and in the BBC medical drama Casualty as a child, then became the industry's go-to for a specific job: Diana at twelve in Wonder Woman, Lara Croft at fourteen in Tomb Raider, the young Anne Frank in an animated feature, Anastasia, Virginia Otis in The Canterville Ghost, a teenage Wendy in The Lost Girls. It is honest work and a strange way to grow up on screen, always playing the earlier draft of a character somebody else will finish.
House of the Dragon changed that, at least partly. Playing the young Alicent Hightower in 2022 was still a role designed to be handed over when the story jumped forward, but the handover only lands if the first half is unforgettable, and theirs was: a teenager being maneuvered by adults, with the terror kept just under the surface of good manners.
Geek Girl in 2024 is the first lead built around them rather than around continuity, and it asks for the opposite skill, warmth and comic clumsiness held for a whole season. Between the two sit the quieter credits worth knowing about, Ella Warren in the psychological drama Platform 7 and the young dual role in the Luxembourgish thriller Capitani. Carey is still in their early twenties, uses both she and they pronouns, and has the interesting problem of a performer whose face has been famous for longer than their name.
Movies (8)
TV (4)
Where to start with Emily Carey
Geek Girl is where they carry a show alone, so begin there. It is a broad, likeable Netflix teen series, and the reason it works is a lead performance that plays awkwardness as a real condition rather than a set of tics.
House of the Dragon is not linked on this page, but if you have seen it you already know the strongest work: the early Alicent episodes are the strongest thing on their resume. After that, Platform 7 is the grown-up pick, a bleak British drama that gives them almost nothing to hide behind. Wonder Woman and Tomb Raider are curiosities more than performances, a few minutes each of establishing somebody else's childhood. Capitani is the odd one worth chasing, and Where Is Anne Frank is the most interesting use of their voice.