‘House Of The Dragon’ Cast Discuss How The Sets Enhance Their Acting

With the second season of House of the Dragon premiering Sunday on HBO and Max, fans will return to this larger-than-life fantasy world, filled with alliances forming, deception continuing and plenty more dragons.

Based on the George R.R. Martin book Fire & Blood, House of the Dragon takes place nearly 200 years before its Game of Thrones predecessor series, which was a staple for eight seasons on the cable network. The prequel series, which has already been confirmed for a third season, showcases the early workings of House Targaryen and its turbulent tale surrounding a relentless thirst for power.

Led by showrunner Ryan Condal, House of the Dragon is undoubtedly one of the most extravagant sets in television production today, with its meticulous details that seem to never cut corners.

Condal told me, “I’m surrounded by an incredible team of artists and artisans, who also have this insane attention-to-detail. They love all this stuff and bringing all of it to life. Any little details that they can take from George’s text or information he has given, they love that. You’re seeing this deep love that all the artists that go into the making of the show have for it.”

The creators and crew are not the only ones expressing their appreciation for these grand television backdrops. The actor Olivia Cooke, who plays Alicent Hightower, said of the details, “Oh, I love that bit. I really love that bit. What’s incredible – we’ve got an amazing production designer Jim Clay, who has just built a world for us, so we don’t have to do any imagining, whatsoever. And so, you inhabit this space and you get to forget the rest of the world for the hours that you’re there on-set.”

Phia Saban, who plays Helaena Targaryen, said, “The detail – there’s so many cool things about watching it. You get that really excited buzz, getting to see that sweeping universe.”

Prior to his production design efforts on House of the Dragon, Clay had created other impressive visual worlds on several Kenneth Branagh film projects, including Murder on the Orient Express, Belfast and Death on the Nile.

“Jim Clay is a genius,” said Tom Glynn-Carney, who plays Aegon Targaryen II. “Everything is a work of art. It makes our job a lot easier that we get to step foot onto those sets in our costumes, in our hair and makeup, and be transported there. There’s very little imagination required when you’re on those sets.”

Matthew Needham, who plays Larys Strong, said, “It’s not a set – they built a world. You’re just there and the costumes aren’t costumes – they’re clothing. It does a lot of the heavy lifting for you. You can’t help but think differently and move differently, and behave in keeping with the world that has been built around you.”

Matt Smith, the actor behind the character of Daemon Targaryen on House of the Dragon, is no stranger to big television productions, following his celebrated work on shows like Doctor Who and The Crown, but what perhaps makes this production different for him? Smith said, “I suppose the sort of fantastical element, really, and that sense of mythology that it’s steeped in. Particularly this season, there’s a sense of witchcraft – and obviously, sadly for ours in The Crown, there were no dragons, which was a shame. The scale of it is pretty wonderful.”

Actor Steve Toussaint, who plays Corlys Velaryon, said of the set designs, “When you walk onto the set and there’s such detail, it helps you stay in the moment and to feel that character – what it must be like to live in that world. You can actually spend hours just wandering around those sets and the paintings that they’ve done and stuff like that. It’s amazing.”

Eve Best, who plays Rhaenys Targaryen, added: “Even the food, sometimes – there’s a scene in [season two] episode three. In the script, it says that they’re having a picnic of sorts but the detail of this picnic! I wanted the camera to linger over this unbelievably beautiful picnic basket that they produced with bread that sort of looked like Westeros-style bread and amazing little bits of things. Completely astonishing detail.”

Harry Collett, who plays Jacaerys Velaryon, said of the production designs, “As an actor, you will be sitting at a table or something – you want something to play with and you pick up a scroll, you might start reading it. When you’re on some other productions, you pick a prop up and they’re like, ‘You can pick up the book but you can’t open it’ because it’s like an empty book, but on this, you can pick up a book, you can pick up anything and it will be so detailed – it will be fine to show on-camera. You can read a scroll, if you want, and it will have all the information you need on it. It’s so immersive and it really makes you get involved in the story a lot more and sort of feel like you are in these characters’ heads.”

Bethany Antonia, who plays Lady Baela Targaryen, added: “It gives you the freedom to like kind of come off of the page, as well. Sometimes, things are scripted so specifically and when you’ve been like built an entire world around you, it just gives you the freedom to decide on the day, which is really nice.”

“I mean, just the sheer scale of it,” said Fabien Frankel, who plays Ser Criston Cole on the HBO/Max series. “I haven’t worked on anything fantasy before. I think it’s kind of living your child fantasies in a weird way. When you’re a kid, you want to be a knight. Me and my brother used to watch A Knight’s Tale and that was just like our movie! You kind of feel like you’re doing that.”

Ewan Mitchell, who plays Aemond Targaryen, concluded with his thoughts about the House of the Dragon sets, “It’s a testament to Jim Clay and his production design. It’s genius level, when the house lights go down and the candles come up. It’s escapism taken to an eleven. What I really love about the sets is that all of the rooms in the studio are geographically linked with one another, so you can really afford those long-running takes without having to shout cut – without breaking the cameras. For an actor, that’s escapism. It’s really inspiring, being on his sets.”