Emma D’Arcy was feeling like a little bit of a cheat. It was July of 2022 on the world premiere of Home of the Dragon in Los Angeles. Stylishly wearing an outsized swimsuit and drop earrings, D’Arcy labored the crimson carpet like an previous professional however by no means felt utterly comfy among the many a whole bunch of keen followers who packed the Academy Museum theater. “It’s like discovering your self in another person’s life,” recollects the actor, who performs Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen within the HBO drama that’s primarily based on George R.R. Martin’s Hearth & Blood. “It’s fairly wild having by no means performed that earlier than, and positively not on that scale, clearly, with one of many largest reveals on the earth. And I’m fairly digital camera shy, which is clearly a catastrophe.”

However when the lights went down and the Recreation of Thrones theme music crammed the theater, D’Arcy’s nervousness was changed by an inescapable euphoria. “We have been so thrilled as a result of we heard initially how they have been kind of holding their playing cards near their chests about what the theme could be,” says the actor. “I kind of felt like, ‘come on, you cowards, use the music!’ Like, put your cash the place your mouth is. It’s embarrassing, however once I used to look at Recreation of Thrones when it was on TV, I received chills each time. I might by no means skip the titles, you understand? They have been so good. So good.”

Although it’s unimaginable to proceed the Westeros franchise with out that includes varied towheads, dragons and that indelible title music, Martin and co-creator Ryan Condal weren’t trying to straight-up copy what David Benioff and D.B. Weiss achieved over eight, Emmy-winning seasons on Recreation of Thrones. Fairly, their purpose was to inform extra of an intimate household story that takes place 172 years earlier than the delivery of Daenerys (performed in Thrones by Emilia Clarke) by specializing in three foremost characters throughout the Home Targaryen — the reluctant King Viserys (Paddy Considine), who finally ends up marrying Alicent (Olivia Cooke), the perfect good friend of his daughter Rhaenyra whom he dubbed the inheritor obvious to the throne. Add in a reckless uncle named Daemon (Matt Smith) who falls exhausting for his brother’s dragon-riding daughter, and also you’ve received a jam-packed first season filled with treachery, incest and familial violence.

“The trick was actually to point out this generational battle that started with Viserys’s era,” mentioned Condal at Deadline’s Contenders occasion. (Due to the WGA strike, Condal wouldn’t do interviews for this story). “Viserys and his hand Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) handed it right down to their youngsters, Rhaenyra and Alicent, who have been younger girls and used as pawns within the recreation of thrones. After which as they grew up and have become adults and had youngsters of their very own, and this bitter rivalry and grasp for energy will get handed on to their youngsters. So it’s a three-generational story and we wanted to get via that in the midst of one season.”

That meant starting the prequel with two youthful actresses enjoying Rhaenyra and Alicent — a dangerous proposition that meant switching out actresses Milly Alcock and Emily Carey for D’Arcy and Cooke midway via the 10-episode season and probably elevating fan ire (which ended up taking place since Alcock, particularly, was so well-liked).

“It’s hardly ever performed,” admitted Cooke to Deadline in 2022. “I feel whereas watching it, I felt extra strain than once I really filmed it. It by no means felt like we have been changing the others. It simply felt like the primary 5 episodes have been a kind of a time capsule.”

Thankfully, Cooke and D’Arcy by no means felt a must continuously share notes with their youthful counterparts to take care of some continuity of their roles. “There was no laying down of the legislation for Rhaenyra. I additionally didn’t really feel like that was essential,” D’Arcy says. “I feel one thing that’s so good about how the primary collection is constructed is that it does give kind of a tangible distance from one’s childhood. I positively really feel my childhood self to be fairly separate from me and I can kind of see the perimeters of the person who I used to be as a baby in a method that I’m not nearly as good at seeing my edges now. I cherished how that was literalized within the present. It was additionally simply an enormous honor as a result of Millie is such a superb actor, and it was very pretty to come back in after they’ve taken care so superbly within the first 5 episodes. It was a really beneficiant springboard for me and Olivia, I feel.”

However whereas followers discovered to like the altering faces of Rhaenyra and Alicent, they remained considerably skeptical of Considine’s Viserys — particularly after the dying of his spouse Aemma Arryn and their new child son within the first episode. Folks assumed he ordered her dying to save lots of his male inheritor, despite the fact that each have been going to die regardless. (That’s medieval drugs for you!). And to make issues worse, Viserys was then inspired to marry Alicent, a form and moderately timid teen lower than half his age.

“I used to be kind of shocked within the first episode or so when folks commented that they hated him,” Considine says. “I didn’t perceive that. Why would you hate him? I don’t assume that followers have been used to a personality like that in that world, a king who wasn’t corrupted by energy or entitlement. I feel it was troublesome for folks to position him as a result of he wasn’t significantly archetypal and he wasn’t what they have been anticipating from what they’d learn within the books, both.” That in itself is what made Viserys such a provocative character — and why Considine, whose earlier credit included The Loss of life of Stalin and Peaky Blinders, was the right man to play him. (Condal likes to explain Considine’s casting as “celestial” after each he and director Miguel Sapochnik singled him out from an extended record of candidates).

As for writing Viserys, “We began with the need to painting this very difficult character who we all the time mentioned was a very good man however was not a superb king,” Condal mentioned. “The rationale for that’s as a result of he’s really fairly a contemporary politician. He’s not fast to maneuver. He takes consensus. He finds the center usually. These aren’t qualities that work in a feudal medieval society. They’re issues we search for in our modern leaders. We have been actually excited to populate this world with a personality like that. There’s a sure weak spot seen in that.”

Nobody acknowledges his brother’s shortcomings greater than Daemon, who serves because the King’s Touchdown watch commander by having his troopers castrate and behead criminals. Regardless of his malevolent status, Daemon was the apparent option to succeed Viserys on the throne, however Hightower manufactured a scandal by alleging how he denigrated Viserys’ lifeless toddler son at a neighborhood pleasure home. No such phrases have been spoken — a minimum of, we by no means heard them within the pilot episode — nevertheless it was sufficient to persuade Viserys to surrender any hope of his brother taking on the realm. That led him to anoint Rhaenyra, as an alternative.

“I feel Daemon’s received his personal sense of morality, so to him, he looks like he’s all the time doing the appropriate factor,” says Smith. “I feel his love for his brother is true. It’s simply barely ill-conceived at instances. And whenever you assume he’s doing the appropriate factor, really, he’s not. And when he thinks he’s doing the improper factor, he’s not. I don’t know whether or not there’s a superb man ready to come back out in Daemon, however I definitely assume there’s a facet of him that’s loyal.”

If not a tad, ahem, perverted: Daemon finally ends up — gasp! — bedding his niece Rhaenyra whereas she’s nonetheless a teen. Though he doesn’t find yourself fathering her three dark-haired sons (Ser Harwin Sturdy was liable for that), Daemon finally ends up marrying D’Arcy’s Rhaenyra within the seventh episode. Awkward! However earlier than you clutch your pearls, Smith and D’Arcy really leaned into the yukiness of all of it. “If we’re going to point out this relationship and we’re going to do the entire thing justice, the ick issue needs to be current as a result of that’s trustworthy,” D’Arcy says. “It may be attractive, and also you’ve received to maintain the ick within the room as a result of that’s trustworthy.”

“Clearly we’re coping with occasions which are a whole bunch of years previous and the morality was totally different then,” provides Smith. “However in the end, it’s necessary to the story. So, due to this fact, Daemon and Rhaenyra do their factor.”

And thus started the beginning of the Targaryen civil warfare, in any other case often known as the Dance of Dragons, as Rhaenyra fights for her true birthright. However earlier than we get into gritty particulars, prepare for the world’s most delayed spoiler alert: Viserys dies in episode 9, however not earlier than he confuses his spouse Alicent with a deathbed utterance that leads her to consider their son, Aegon II, would inherit the Iron Throne. (Viserys thought he was speaking to Rhaenyra concerning the Track of Ice and Hearth prophecy, and the way she is the one one who can unite the realm). Off-camera, Considine knew the day was coming as he was instructed on the very starting that his time in Westeros could be brief. Moreover being delightfully relieved that he would now not need to put on such ghastly make-up — by the point of his dying, his face was sunken, and he had just one eye — Considine thought his immediate passing solely made the story higher.

“There’s none of that questioning what will occur in Season 2, you understand?” Considine says. “There have been some feedback from individuals who felt that the present moved alongside too shortly. They wished to stay with the youthful variations of Rhaenyra and Alicent, however for my character, I simply assume he would’ve gotten too drawn out. He would’ve change into fairly a boring character to unfold out over a season. So, I used to be fairly grateful to die.”

And although he was somewhat dissatisfied that he by no means received to journey a dragon (“I might have settled for Pete’s,” he mentioned, in reference to the title character from the 1977 musical fantasy movie), he was significantly glad to stroll away with excessive reward from the auteur Martin himself. “His phrases to me have been you performed Viserys higher than he ever imagined. Your Viserys is best than my Viserys,” Considine recollects.“To get a nod from a creator like that, for him to say that he desires to return and rewrite Viserys historical past, that’s actually flattering. There was a little bit of jealousy when Season 2 began filming and I wasn’t a part of it anymore. However a minimum of I made an affect.”

It’s Rhaenyra’s flip now. Bereft that one among her sons was murdered within the season finale, she’ll little doubt be keen to start out that civil warfare with Alicent and Co. when the present returns in 2024. Naturally, Condal is loath to spoil something concerning the new episodes, although he did inform followers throughout an FYC occasion in March that 5 new dragons can be launched in Season 2. (Deadline additionally broke that Season 2 will solely include eight episodes, down two from Season 1. That’s a part of a long-term plan for the drama, which suggests HBO is already mulling a inexperienced mild for a 3rd season.)

“I’m excited to choose up the place we left off,” Condal mentioned. “We did the exhausting, complicated work of establishing this fully new dynasty and household and all of the gamers in Season 1 and took the time to do all of the character work so that you understood the place all people fell alongside the road of are they on Alicent’s facet of the equation, Aegon’s facet or are they on Rhaenyra’s facet and Daemon’s facet. The thrill now’s that we get to fall into the extra conventional rhythms of storytelling and see the place that story goes to go. We’ve all the time talked about this specific story, and George has talked about it too, about this being a Shakespearean or Greek tragedy.

Whereas the unique collection is like this massive epic sweeping fantasy, about mild and darkness, ice and fireplace, this collection may be very a lot a couple of home tearing itself aside from inside. Now that each one these items have been set on the board, I’m actually excited to inform the following chapter, to see what occurs now that Viserys is gone and is now not maintaining a lid on issues.”

As for D’Arcy, merely donning these lengthy blonde locks helps them put together for the battle that’s but to come back. “The wig is superb. It does all of the work,” they admit. “It adjustments the whole lot about your actuality. It’s humorous, once we are available on a weekend to rehearse or one thing, I might be as I’m. I are available and I’m utterly invisible. Individuals are barging round, and I can simply kind of lurk about and nobody actually notices that I’m there till we’re doing the work. Clearly as an actor it’s a complete present as a result of I go away the make-up trailer with that platinum blonde hair and the world is totally different. If you are available sporting a blonde wig, folks wish to maintain the door open for you. Truthfully, I can’t stress this sufficient. Folks ought to strive it. Folks ought to exit within the reverse of nonetheless they appear or current and see how totally different the world is. It’s wild.”