Actor Daniel Scott-Smith takes us behind the mask of the Crabfeeder

Craghas Drahar, aka the Crabfeeder, was a villain on House of the Dragon. He died in this Sunday’s new episode, “Second of His Name,” his mutilated body dragged onto the beach by Daemon Targaryen.

The Crabfeeder never had a line, but Entertainment Weekly got to talk to the man behind the mask: actor Daniel Scott-Smith. “[I]t’s a strange experience” to gaze upon his own dead body — even if it is just a prosthetic,” Scott-Smith mused. “I don’t think many people would experience that normally, but it was quite surreal. It was cool, though.”

Going back to the beginning, Scott-Smith remembered his audition, which obviously didn’t have any dialogue. “It was all very physical,” he said. “They wanted to see how I would physically embrace the character. In the actual breakdown, it said, ‘Ideally, if you had a mask to wear, that would be great.’ I didn’t have a mask, so I [thought] maybe I won’t get it because of that. But they were asking me about the hammering, how I’d physicalize that. They wanted to see the animalistic qualities with how I would eat something. So it was lots of little bits.”

Confirmed: The Crabfeeder had greyscale

Speaking of that mask, if it reminded you of the masks the Sons of the Harpy wore when fighting Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones seasons 5 and 6, that was the idea. “It was definitely a nod to that for, I guess, the fans, because it’s something familiar for them,” Scott-Smith said. “And we spoke about the idea of him being the first person to wear this mask and it becoming iconic and, therefore, it’s built from that [for Game of Thrones]… Why is he wearing the mask? How does he feel about that? It’s a power statement, so he’s quite happy wearing it.”

In the end, the Crabfeeder was more about setting a mood than being a complicated character. We learned pretty much nothing about him, and what we did learn wasn’t really taken from George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, the book on which the show is based. For instance, in that show, Craghas Drahar is the commander of the armies of the Triarchy, whereas on House of the Dragon he seems to be more of a pirate who has their tacit support. In the book, it’s said that he ties people up on the beach so they’ll drown when the tide comes in; the crabs eat them eventually, sure, but that’s not the point. On the show, it seems to be all about the crabs.

“He’s a nasty character. So as an actor, it’s a dream,” Scott-Smith said. “It’s nice when you have details, as well, but it’s also nice when it’s a completely open book. That gave us the freedom to do what we wanted with the character, which, on a creative level, was incredible for me and I think for the directors, as well, because we could play with it and build our own version of Crabfeeder.”

"Craghas Drahar is seen as the bad guy, but for any bad character there’s always got to be a journey of how they got to that point. We wanted to remember that there’s two sides to him. So we spoke about the idea of him being a prince, or that he calls himself a prince, so he came from some sort of higher House. We spoke about that and the gradual decline to where he is, how the greyscale might affect him physically, even mentally."

It’s good to hear Scott-Smith confirm that the Crabfeeder did indeed have greyscale. I noticed something was up with his skin but wasn’t sure if that’s what they were going for. “We wanted to show the more prince, royal side, but then we also wanted to show the more feral side, which came through when he holds the hammer,” Scott-Smith continued. “We wanted the idea of the hammer turning him into more of a beastly character.”

Farewell, Crabfeeder, we hardly knew ye.

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