House of the Dragon, like Game of Thrones before it, has an enormous cast. Matt Smith is the vicious Daemon Targaryen. Olivia Cooke is the clever Alicent Hightower. And on and on. After all, this is a complicated story about a brutal civil war that tore Westeros apart some 200 years before the story we know, based on George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood. If HBO wants to tell this tale, they need to do it in all of its wonderful complexity.
And that means lots of tertiary characters who might appear for a scene or two and disappear. We’ve mostly known the main players in House of the Dragon for a while by this point, but there are lots of supporting players we’re only just now finding out about.
For instance, according to his Spotlight page (Spotlight is a very well-respected website used by casting agents), actor Thom Ashley is playing a character named…Brett Lannister.
Ashley has appeared in stuff like Cursed and Into the Badlands, but I don’t want to talk about his resume. I want to talk about the fact that he’s playing a guy named Brett Lannister, Tywin’s ancestor who was in Phi Delta Theta. Brett Lannister who works in finance. Brett Lannister who got a DUI but it didn’t stick. That Brett Lannister.
Obviously I’m just having some fun here; Brett Lannister is actually the latest in a line of Game of Thrones characters who have weirdly modern names. Did you know there’s a guy named Jason Lannister? And who can forget uncle Kevan Lannister? Still, even in that crowd, Brett seems like a stretch.
I hope he gets a line. I hope he’s the secret main character.
Heleana Targaryen is on House of the Dragon
There are some other Spotlight discoveries worth pointing out. The sleuths on the House of the Dragon subreddit have also noticed that actor Haqi Ali is playing a character named Maester Kelvyn. And perhaps most notably, actor Tripti Tripuraneni will play “Heleana’s Nurse.” That’s important because Heleana Targaryen is an important character, the only daughter of Alicent Hightower and King Viserys I Targaryen (Paddy Considine). We assumed she would be part of the show but it’s nice to have it confirmed.
The first season of House of the Dragon will cover a period of time when some of the main players are still very young. If Heleana has a nurse, she may be introduced to us as a baby, but she’ll grow into adulthood before the story is over.
House of the Dragon premieres on HBO and HBO Max this year, although we don’t have an exact date yet.
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