“Some of them are real swords.
It is as dangerous as it is [described] in the books.”
The redesigned throne feels a lot closer to whatGame of Thronescreator and authorGeorge R.R.
Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen (Milly Alcock) is named the king’s heir before the Iron Throne on ‘House of the Dragon.'.Ollie Upton/HBO
Martinenvisioned in the pages of hisA Song of Ice and Firenovels, which began with 1996’sA Game of Thrones.
withThe Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
And maybe the nextGame of Thronesis indeedGame of Thrones.
Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen (Milly Alcock) is named the king’s heir before the Iron Throne on ‘House of the Dragon.'.Ollie Upton/HBO
That is, if viewers can get past the discourse surrounding the original.
Weissended the final season of their adaptation of Martin’s core novels.
“I feel like a bit of that probably happened.
Emma D’Arcy transforms into Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, heir to the Iron Throne, on ‘House of the Dragon.'.Nadav Kander for EW
And I was probably one of them, as well.”
“What they say doesn’t really affect the way we approach this.
We have this huge legacy to carry forward.
Matt Smith’s Prince Daemon, brother to King Viserys I, is one of the more volatile Targaryens on ‘House of the Dragon.'.Nadav Kander for EW
(Madness and greatness are the two sides.)
Well, there area lotof Targaryens inHouse of the Dragon and also a lot of dragons.
Under the rule of King Viserys, the country has seen more than 70 years of peace.
Paddy Considine reigns over Westeros as King Viserys I Targaryen in ‘House of the Dragon.'.Nadav Kander for EW
It’s also the age whenthemost dragons roamed the skies of Westeros.
Because of the pandemic, most stores were shut down.
So D’Arcy had to improvise.
“All I had were some hair extensions left over from a job.
No way of attaching them to me, no idea how to do that,” D’Arcy recalls.
“For 24 hours, me and my partner justtried I can’t put more emphasis behind that word.
Emily Carey (L) and Milly Alcock (R) play younger versions of Alicent Hightower and Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, respectively, on ‘House of the Dragon.'.Ollie Upton/HBO
My hair was about as long as it is now.
We hot glued these hair extensions to these wig grips.
We would send photos to Miguel, and we thought we’d cracked it.
Olivia Cooke’s Alicent Hightower is described as the most comely woman in the Seven Kingdoms.Nadav Kander for EW
And he said, ‘Can you keep trying?’
We kept trying until we found something that gave me the illusion I had long hair.
The wig work paid off.
Rhys Ifans gets his pin as Hand of the King, Otto Hightower, on ‘House of the Dragon.'.Nadav Kander for EW
The global search to find adult Rhaenyra, involving dozens of actors, had finally ended.
Rhaenyra is not your typical princess, even byThronesstandards.
In other words, she enjoys the freedoms usually afforded to male heirs.
D’Arcy sees Rhaenyra as “pushing at the edges of womanhood.”
They explain how she’s “obsessed with masculinity,” equating “maleness” to freedom.
“It’s like she has a doppelganger.
HBO’s ‘House of the Dragon’ adapts the Great Council of Harrenhal from George R.R. Martin’s ‘Fire and Blood.'.Ollie Upton/HBO
Smith thinks of the beast as “a very grumpy, tough, surly sort.”
Caraxes is constantly annoyed, but Daemon loves that about him.
“He’s almost an untrainable dragon in many respects.”
Steve Toussaint stars as Lord Corlys Velaryon, the famed seafaring explorer known as the Sea Snake, in ‘House of the Dragon.'.Nadav Kander for EW
One could say the same of the prince.
“I think a lot of it is about his brother.”
Viserys doesn’t even ride a dragon anymore, yet he was capable of mounting Balerion, a.k.a.
Eve Best praises the poise and smarts of her character, Princess Rhaenys Targaryen, on ‘House of the Dragon.'.Nadav Kander for EW
the Black Dread, the beast that once bonded with Aegon Targaryen, the conqueror of Westeros.
But also, Viserys has an ego,“The World’s EndandThe Outsidervet explains.
They don’t remember peaceful kings.
Emma D’Arcy (L) and Olivia Cooke (R) play adult versions of Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower on ‘House of the Dragon.'.Ollie Upton/HBO
They don’t remember good people.
They remember tyrants.”
“Nobody alive in this story has ever seen a war or a meaningful conflict,” Condal elaborates.
D’Arcy remembers their adrenaline in the moment.
“You know those chance meetings that happen where there’s a familiarity?
For some unknown reason, I really felt that with Liv.”
With virtually no life outside of King’s Landing, she forms a fast and immediate bond with Rhaenyra.
It makes separating truth from fiction in this fictional world puzzling.
“you’ve got the option to understand why,” Cooke, 28, adds.
“The woman whispering into a powerful man’s ear has never been positively written about.
So the fun was to venture to find the nuance.”
But even those who have readFire and Bloodonly have the general timeline of events.
It’s not the whole story.
History, as viewers will come to find, rarely gets any of these characters right.
Cooke describes the younger Alicent as being “hermetically sealed in this kingdom” with her dad.
His greatest fear is that Daemon perchance might ascend the Iron Throne.
“He’s an astute, high-functioning political creature,” Ifans, 54, says of Otto.
“He knows the machinations of this court better than anyone.
D’Arcy believes the princess, too, has a part to play in the tension.
“Rhaenyra has a real history of abandonment,” they say.
“It’s something that keeps happening, and she’s also very much culpable in that abandonment.
“Friendship is such a wild, intense journey,” sums up Carey.
“You feel so much at that age for your friends.
That was definitely something that we played around with.
They go through a lot as people, individually and together.
Their relationship with each other changes them as the story line continues.”
As the so-called “Queen Who Never Was,” no one understands this lesson better.
It was a complicated matter.
The first picks had died, and all the familial inbreeding made the next choice complex.
(Yes, Targaryens are messy.
It is known.)
Lords and maesters from all over the realm assembled to determine succession.
So Viserys was named King of Westeros instead.
“Rhaenys’ relationship with Rhaenyra is very complicated.
There’s an element of mentorship.
There’s also an element of other things that go along with that, potentially friendship or sympathy.
At the same time, there’s all kinds of other, much darker things.
The Targaryens rule the skies and the Velaryons rule the seas.
(A Sea Snake prequel series is in the early stages of development.)
His own personal collection of silver rings glisten in the lamplight as he sips from his coffee cup.
He knows he has power, and he knows that they need him…
He’s this fearless guy.
He’s very rich now.
He likes people to see that he’s rich.
But you, as the actor, have to find a way to humanize it.”
“It’s much simpler then,” he says.
“If you don’t do it right, you die.
There’s no gray area.
But of course he has this huge ambition.
This idea of legacy, it’s a big deal for him.”
This love does not allow Corlys to forget the moment Rhaenys was passed over for the throne years prior.
Rhaenys is a great politician, which is why Best believes she would’ve made a great queen.
Rhaenys also happens to be the most experienced dragonrider we meet onHouse of the Dragon.
The solution arose out of Condal’s conversations with Martin.
The image stuck with the new showrunner.
“Once we had that idea, it just felt like everything fell into place,” Condal recalls.
To say it’s been a journey to make the firstGame of Thronessuccessor show is an understatement.
“My tactic is called, ‘Don’t think about it,'” they say.
“At the moment, we’re in quite a special place.
None of it is in the ether yet, and no one knows who I am.”
All they could do was make something they, asGame of Thronesfans, would enjoy and approve of.
“That was always the bar I was setting,” Condal remarks.
The embellished Iron Throne is a clear indication of how high that bar was.
did when they were startingGame of Thrones,” Condal concludes.
“They had to build an audience and earn it.
We’re standing on the shoulders of giants” or rather, dragons.
Photographer (non-episodic photos, covers, and motion assets): Nadav Kander
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