and the very personal reason for why he finds it so tough to watch his on-screen death.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: It’s really nice seeing you healthy and with hair and your full face.
PADDY CONSIDINE:Yeah.
Paddy Considine on ‘House of the Dragon’.Ollie Upton/HBO
[Laughs]
That must have been a process.
How much of it was practical?
How much of those final couple episodes when we saw King Viserys dying was practical, what was CGI?
Paddy Considine and Milly Alcock on ‘House of the Dragon’.Ollie Upton/HBO
A huge percentage of it was practical.
It was about four and a half hours, probably a tiny bit longer.
It was a long time in the makeup chair for the episode 8 look which was my final look.
Emma D’Arcy and Paddy Considine on ‘House of the Dragon’.Ollie Upton/HBO
So in those regards, it was painful to see such a good king have this fate.
I had to make him interesting.
That was the job, really, when I read it.
Getty Images
I saw a really great character there and a really great opportunity to bring something special to it.
But I saw all the different aspects to him.
I saw all the different struggles and the things that he was dealing with.
Rachel Weisz as Elliot Mantle in ‘Dead Ringers’.
He was the only one that wasn’t asking to be healed in any way.
He became a physical manifestation of all those different struggles.
So it was an interesting thing to play.
Pete Davidson and Edie Falco on ‘Bupkis’.
He’s not actually going to die.
Maybe the writers will throw out the window what people know from the book."
He was one of those guys that, once he’d gone, everybody realized how valuable he was.
Joshua Jackson in ‘Fatal Attraction’.
So there was a lot of mixed emotions in hindsight about him.
And I took exception to being called weak by Daemon, by [Matt Smith]’s character.
That rankled me, not just as Viserys but as Paddy.
Brian Cox and Matthew Macfadyen on ‘Succession’.David M. Russell/HBO
I thought, this guy isn’t weak, he’s just trying to do the right thing.
The real good guys suffer in those kind of situations.
He wasn’t Machiavellian enough to sit on the throne and exploit it.
The cast of ‘Abbott Elementary’.Pamela Littky/ABC
He wanted to do the right thing by everybody but couldn’t.
There was a few.
I want to be as good as that guy."
Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer in ‘Dahmer’.Netflix
I don’t know.
But there was just something walking away from that scene.
Where’s Paddy?"
Joel Kinnaman on “For All Mankind”.Apple TV+
And I’d gone.
And I just walked out of the building and I went, “I think I did it.”
[Laughs] And I think for the first time I’d managed to make it work.
Meghann Fahy on ‘The White Lotus: Sicily’.Fabio Lovino/HBO
So in those regards, this role must mean a lot to you.
Yeah, I love him.
I don’t think I’ve ever loved a character as much as I’ve loved him.
Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio in ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’.Melinda Sue Gordon/Apple TV +
He was for me, he was meant for me.
And I went, “I can’t…
I don’t want to see that I’m s—.”
Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie in ‘Barbie’.Warner Bros.
And she played it to me.
She played me the key bits of that episode 8, the walk into the throne room.
And I went, “Okay, okay.”
Cillian Murphy in ‘Oppenheimer’.Universal Pictures
It didn’t just remind me of him, I looked the image of my father when he died.
It was really tough [to watch].
And the moment you say “My love” when he dies was improvised, correct?
Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein in ‘Maestro’.Netflix
[Viserys] never got over the death of Aemma.
And when he’s deteriorating, it’s almost like he is just accepting his death.
He’s not the one saying to the Maesters, “Help me, help me.
‘The Color Purple’ stars Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, Halle Bailey, and Fantasia Barrino.Rodin Eckenroth/Getty; Bennett Raglin/Getty; Kevin Mazur/Getty; Jamie McCarthy/Getty
My arm’s falling off.”
He’s just accepting it as a kind of punishment for putting his wife through that butchery.
A lot of people confused it and thought he’d chosen to kill her; he didn’t.
He never ever recovered from it, and I carried that with me all the way.
I said, “Ah, I’m not telling you.”
It just felt so personal.
I’m not giving everybody my secrets…. And that was improvised.
And they left it in.
[Laughs] I was.
I was jealous early on.
I’ve got a little nephew and he loves dragons.
This was his thing.
And he starts asking questions: “Do you have a sword?
Do you fight?”
No, I don’t fight."
“Do you fly dragons?”
And you see his face like going, “What do you do?”
Hear our full conversation with Considine on the new episode of EW’sThe Awardistpodcast, below.
And yet, we have to.
Patrick’s Pick:For All Mankind
“People are sleeping on the show.
I just started it.”
So anyway, this is my, this is my putting it out in the universe."
And so this year I’m doing it differently.
And that’sMeghann FahyforWhite Lotus.
I thinkJennifer Coolidgeis a lock.
I thought she was the absolute breakout of that season, and I think a lot of people did.
And I would just love if she had her moment."
Other possible contenders:RustinThe Piano LessonDune: Part TwoElementalAsteroid CityPriscillaCastePast LivesThe Book of ClarenceNyad
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