House of the Dragon is set some 200 years before Game of Thrones, when the Targaryen dynasty was at the height of its power. We’ll be introduced to a whole new crop of schemers, graspers, and strivers, including Rhaenys Targaryen, the Queen Who Never Was.
Played by Eve Best, Rhaenys is a dragon-rider who was once in line for the Iron Throne, but was passed over in favor of her cousin Viserys Targaryen (Paddy Considine), partially because she was a woman and the idea of having a queen didn’t sit well with many of the lords of Westeros.
Apparently, Considine was possessive of the Iron Throne on set, even when it came to Best, who had a pretty good claim to it. “Yes, he didn’t want anybody else to sit on it,” Best told The Guardian. “I never quite knew to what extent he was joking. Rightfully it should have been my throne. I had to settle for sitting on a replica one at Comic Con instead.”
Apparently, the boys got all the cool toys in this first season. “One day, the props department gave Steve [Toussaint, who plays her husband Corlys] this massive double-sided machete, with an axe head on one side and a sword for chopping off people’s heads on the other. Steve was beside himself, like a kid in a sweet shop. I was intensely jealous and said I wanted a whip. Slightly as a joke but why is it the man who’s handed all this fabulous weaponry? Literally the next day, I was presented with this beautiful red leather whip and sent off to have whip lessons, which was cool.”
In George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood, Rhaenys is a warrior, so it makes sense that she’d get to use a weapon eventually. “Not this season but just wait,” Best teased.
House of the Dragon actor promises big things coming in future seasons
As for what attracted Best to the role in the first place, it was the script; she hadn’t seen Game of Thrones beforehand but has since caught up. “I loved the writing,” Best said. “Ryan [Condal] and Miguel [Sapochnik, co-showrunners] hooked me in immediately with the driving theme of the series. There is a line my character says early on: ‘Men would sooner put the realm to the torch than see a woman ascend to the Iron Throne.’ Lose the word ‘Iron’ from that sentence and it feels all too relevant.”
"It is rather depressingly resonant – not just with British politics but with what’s going on all over the world. All kinds of outmoded, corrupt, toxic systems are unravelling, imploding and being dismantled. That feels like Westeros territory."
The show will definitely have some heavy themes, but there’s some fun as well; it sounds like the dragons were what really clinched things for Best. “To top it all off, they told me my character was a dragon rider. I was in!”
"I can’t bear fairground rides, so it was slightly filling me with dread,” Best said. “But it was amazing. You climb up a huge ladder on to this extraordinary machine, then get strapped in. It moves and makes alarming noises, while a wind machine blasts you. I was bruised to hell the next day."
House of the Dragon premieres on HBO and HBO Max this Sunday, August 21.
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