Matt Smith on how House of the Dragon is different from Game of Thrones

HBO is still filming the first season of House of the Dragon, its hotly anticipated follow-up to Game of Thrones. Like the mother show, the cast is large, and includes Doctor Who alum Matt Smith as Daemon Targaryen, the violent, lustful prince who covets his older brother’s seat on the Iron Throne.

That all sounds pretty much in keeping with what we saw on the original series, but obviously House of the Dragon is a new show. It’s about the Dance of the Dragons, a Targaryen civil war that tore Westeros apart hundreds of years before Daenerys or Jon Snow were even born.

“Obviously … there’s dragons and swords and all of the intrigue and dastardly goings on that happen in the court of the Targaryens,” Smith told Looper. “I suppose fundamentally, it’s a different story. We’re 300 years before Game of Thrones. We’re spending time with a smaller group of characters to a certain degree … I think it’s up for other people to decide how they’re similar or different. I just turn up and try and get the lines in the right order.”

When is House of the Dragon set?

First of all, just to clear this up, House of the Dragon is not set 300 years before Game of Thrones; it’s set 200 years before. The “300 years” number keeps getting thrown around because the book on which the show is based, George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, technically does cover events as far as 300 years back. But the events of House of the Dragon happen around 100 years after that.

Everybody good? Smith, are you paying attention?

Anyway, Smith couldn’t reveal too much about the show, although he was full of praise for the gorgeous costumes, which we can see in the trailer. “We have a wonderful costume designer called Jany Temime, who did lots of the Harry Potters and she did [the James Bond film Skyfall],” he said. “I have to say the costumes in ‘House of the Dragon’ are just absolutely beautiful. She’s done such great work. That’s one of the things that I think we can really be proud of in this show, is the costumes have really delivered.”

 Matt Smith is “very excited for [Morbius] to come out”

Beyond Westeros, Matt Smith has a role in the upcoming superhero film Morbius, with Jared Leto playing the titular living vampire, who’s often a villain/reluctant ally of Spider-Man. Smith plays Loixas Crown, who is also the villain Hunger in Marvel Comics. In the movie, Crown is an old friend of Doctor Michael Morbius and contracts the same rare blood disease that drives the title character to become a creature of the night. Look for something similar to happen to Crown.

So is Morbius more of a superhero movie or a horror movie? “Well, I think it’s a bit of both,” Smith said. “It’s a horror and superhero movie. Also in many ways, it plays out as a quite contained family drama on some level as well, but with flying vampires and bloodlust and all that sort of stuff, and a few scares along the way. Very excited for that to come out, actually.”

Morbius comes out in theaters on January 28. House of the Dragon will premiere on HBO and HBO Max sometime in 2022.

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