Sunday nights on HBO are about to be full of fire and blood once again. House of the Dragon is returning for its third season. What can we expect from the show this time around? Nerdist found out from the cast when we took part in a series of virtual media roundtables. We heard from Larys and Aegon and the three new baseborn dragonriders. But we also spoke with highborn members of House Targaryen, famous sea commanders, the Greens, and the mysterious lady of Harrenhal.
From betraying allies and the burden of shooting in heavy armor, to witch therapy and more, these were some of the best and most interesting things we learned about House of the Dragon season three from Steve Toussaint, Abubakar Salim, Fabian Frankel, Olivia Cooke, Freddie Fox, Ewan Mitchell, and Gayle Rankin.
On the challenge of wearing costume heavy costumes, especially armor in battle sequences.
Abubakar Salim (Alyn of Hull): Oh, it’s horrible.
Steve Toussaint (Ser Corlys Velaryon): It’s hoooorrible.
Salim: There’s a moment we filmed where Alyn goes into the water and [director] Loni [Peristere] specifically wanted me to be in the water with all these ropes around me. What was so funny is that I couldn’t stay down long enough because the water just kept raising my suit so I was floating like a baby. It was the most ridiculous thing. There were times as well where my helmet would bob up. And it’s more how embarrassing it made you look rather than necessarily how cool it was.
Toussaint: It’s the thing about the helmet. When we did the Battle of the Stepstones in season one, I had said, “Oh, I don’t think I’ll wear a helmet.” And they were like, “No, I think you should.” And it was went back and forth. Eventually I lost. I had to wear the helmet and it just kept you doing this sort of thing [he indicates it moved up and down]. And you’re like, “That’s not sexy. No.” So when we came to do this battle, when I knew we were doing this battle, I put in a word very early. I was like, “I don’t think he’d have a helmet, would he? ” And again, went back and forth. Luckily this time I had the stunt guys on my side.
“We found a way. We’re going to get you going to fall down, your helmet’s going to drop off, and then you won’y have it on.” Because that’s one of the hardest things. It’s bad enough with all that stuff anyway, all the armor stuff, trying to be flexible. But then you’ve got this thing that’s sliding down, blocking your eyes. Oh, it’s awful.
Fabien Frankel (Ser Criston Cole): I’d like to take this [question about armor] because I’ve actually been wearing it for six years. The first season, to get it on and off, it was like 12 minutes on, 12 minutes off. So if you needed to do anything that required you to be out of your armor, that was a 25 minute break for production. Which is insane. The whole production stops for 25 minutes.
So you’d spend the whole day in it. It was tough to eat, it was tough to sit, it was tough to sleep. It was tough on my neck, my shoulders. But that said, halfway through season one, they made part of it removable. As you can tell, you’ve opened up a deep wound.
Freddie Fox (Ser Gwayne Hightower): Never, ever heard about before.
Frankel: Yeah, clearly no one’s ever heard me before.
Fox: I try and spend most of my day trying to convince production to let me take bits of it off. I have a particular hatred of my helmet.
Olivia Cooke (Alicent Hightower): :big laugh: I just remembered, because you wear a wig and so the helmet comes off.
Fox: It’s not that. That’s not the problem. It made me look like a tit.
Frankel: The shape of the helmet. It’s the same one Rhys (Ifans) had.
Fox: Rhys looks like a fridge. I look like the end of end of a….
Cooke: The end of a penis.
Fox: Yeah, end of a penis.
On whether Alicent has considered what her offer to Rhaenyra will mean for loyal Green allies.
Cooke: I think she has. She’s sort of weighed up all the offers that she could have made Rhaenyra, and I think she tried to give offers that had lesser personal stakes. But she knew she had to offer Aegon on and Aegon’s head, because that’s the only way people will transfer their loyalty to Rhaenyra.
She had a very, very long horse ride back to [King’s Landing] to contemplate what she’s done.
What Alicent thinks of her current relationship with Rhaenyra.
Cooke: I don’t know if she’s cognizant of where she stands with Rhaenyra. I don’t think that’s her priority. In lieu of fixing the wrongs that she has done within the kingdom, she’s just focused on survival. Preparing the Red Keep for as safe as possible transition of power and getting her and Helaena just out of harm’s way. That’s sort of where she is at in the first two episodes, but she keeps being waylaid and interrupted in some of the worst ways possible.
If Alys Rivers and Daemon’s scenes from season two influenced Aemond and Alys’ interactions in seaosn three since the Targaryens princes are reflections of one another.
Ewan Mitchell (Prince Regent Aemond Targaryen): Not so much. In many ways [Aemon and Daemon] have this very symbiotic, two sides of the same coin kind of nature between them. Even though they’ve not met since season one, they’re both very much on paths that you feel like they’re going to come back together at some point. And you know that if and when they do, it’d be catastrophic in nature.
Aemond, he’s on his own journey. And I certainly did rewatch the moment when Daemon flies to Harrenhal and takes the castle with very little resistance and seeing how I can play that. Whereas Aemond, he meets a lot of resistance. So that was always something that I did draw on for inspiration. I mean, I think Matt Smith’s performances, they’re always gems of inspiration in that.
What it’s like getting to play Alys Rivers who often pops up without warning.
Gayle Rankin (Alys Rivers): It’s so much fun. I mean, I wish I was her. It adds, hopefully, a bit of an element of surrealist comedy in some ways. She’s so serious and kind of intense, but she’s also so deeply wise and has lived this life a million times. There’s fun in all of this for her. It’s a bit of a game, which isn’t for so many of the characters. This is not a game and I like how she can flip flop between those two different kinds of vibes.
On seeing completed episode with all of the special effects.
Mitchell: It’s incredible. So much of the work is done for you as an actor with the costumes. Caroline McCall’s costumes, they just hold so much gravitas. They inform your performances to such an extent.
Aemond’s new threads, his armor, the way that makes you posture up, the kind of silhouette that strikes, it really does just inform your performance. He is this machine. He has this almost unbeatable, relentless energy. So as an actor, it’s quite difficult not to play into that as well. You always want to find a fine line with those things.
Whether Alys is always performing with Daemon or if does she genuinely care about him.
Rankin: What the painful truth is that Alys Rivers does really care about Daemon. It’s hard to know when anyone is performing, especially in this kind of world where everybody needs to get something and everybody just trying to get what they want. But what’s painful about the relationship for Alys is she does come to really care for him. And that’s because she knows a lot about what’s going to happen to him.
What Aemond and Alys Rivers learn about one another in season three.
Mitchell: What I love about Harrenhal in season two is like it’s almost like the White Lotus of Westeros. You saw it with Daemon. He has all of his toxins drawn out of him. He has to face his past head on and hopefully, in some way shape or form, grow from it, being accepting of some of the things that he’s done. And if Aemond is going to check into Harrenhal and spend any amount of time there, I’d love Aemond to go through a similar process as well with this therapist being Alice Rivers.
Ranking: The most enticing thing about the relationship on paper, like knowing it was going to happen and occur was that like, how is it going to differ from her relationship with Daemon? Because it had to, because they’re different people. So I was like, “Oh wow, what’s this going to be? Because it can’t be the same.” And there’s a lot of juicy, exciting, surprising stuff that kind of comes about and she learns a lot about herself.
Whether Alys has could manipulate anybody in this story or if powerful men with mommy issues are especially vulnerable?
Rankin: That’s definitely on her specialty list as a therapist. It’s giving this kind of issue that I specialize in. But what’s also exciting is that you can get a flavor of her being ready to move on from that and open up to other parts of herself and other powers that she may have that other kinds of issues.