Game of Thrones star hopes show’s success “won’t get in the way” of prequel

The other week, HBO released the first teaser trailer for House of the Dragon, its hotly anticipated follow-up series to Game of Thrones. Set 200 years before the original series, the characters are all different, but the conflicts — and the white-blonde Targaryen wigs — are much the same.

Naturally, people are curious to hear what the cast of the original show think about the new series. The Hollywood Reporter asked Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) about it when talking with him about his spot on the jury of the 2021 CanneSeries international television festival.

“I saw the teaser trailer that they came out with and I was intrigued,” Coster-Waldau said. “I thought it was fun to see Matt Smith in that world, in that beautiful white wig. And listen, I’m [as] curious as everyone [to see it].”

"But it is a very different show. It’s its own show. I just hope it’s great. I hope the success of Game of Thrones won’t get in the way for people when they experience this new show. For us, it took a while for people to get into Game of Thrones. I remember the first season people were saying: “they’re too many characters, I don’t know what’s going on!” I don’t think they have the luxury we had. They have to start with where we were in like season four or five, because that’s what they will be compared to. But I really hope that it’s a massive hit for them."

It’s hard to believe there was a time when people were concerned over Game of Thrones having too many characters, but it happened. Happily, the prequel is embracing that tradition with an enormous cast.

But Coster-Waldau is right that the series will have a lot of eyes on it compared to Game of Thrones in its early days. Game of Thrones always had a decent budget, but in the beginning it wasn’t even a shadow of what it became, whereas House of the Dragon will come out of the gate with a lot of production pressure behind it. It’s a lot to handle. I too want the show to be great and a massive hit, and hope it doesn’t buckle under the weight of all these expectations.

Happily, the signs are pretty good so far. House of the Dragon premieres on HBO and HBO Max sometime next year.

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