Game of Thrones may have ended in 2019, but fans have been able to return to the world of Westeros thanks to the HBO prequel, House of the Dragon, which released in 2022. The most recent episode of the series – now in Season 3 – left viewers appalled when Aemond, played by Ewan Mitchell, appears to engage in incestuous intimacy with his mother, before it is revealed that the character was hallucinating and was in fact intimate with Alys Rivers, an alleged witch played by Gayle Rankin.Gayle Rankin plays Alys Rivers in the HBO series House of the Dragon. Photo: @houseofthedragonhbo/Instagram“It was very intimate and very odd but very professional,” said Rankin about filming the scene, in a recent interview with Variety. “We tried to like, make jokes, just to keep it lighthearted because those scenes are not easy, and they’re complicated and very technical. So it was also just like it was another day at the office for being like a very odd, f***ed-up scene.”The 36-year-old actress joined the cast of House of the Dragon in 2023 for Season 2; the show is set to end after Season 4.So, who is Gayle Rankin? Here’s what we know.Where is Gayle Rankin from?Gayle Rankin was born and raised in Scotland. Photo: @_____gaylerankin______/InstagramGayle Rankin was born on August 1, 1989, in Paisley, Scotland and was raised in the countryside near Glasgow. She told Interview Magazine in 2017 that she was very quiet in her childhood and did not speak much for about three years.In an interview with Dazed that same year, Rankin said she spent the first 16 years of her life in Scotland and that her entire family is based there. “It’s in my blood and informs my sense of humour, my point of view, the people I choose to spend time with, everything,” she said. “There is magic in Scotland. It’s [a] country with a lot of pride and bravery. I feel lucky to have been born into that.”How did Gayle Rankin get into acting?Gayle Rankin plays the eponymous protagonist in a stage adaptation of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which will tour in Scotland in October and November. Photo: @_____gaylerankin______/Instagram