House of the Dragon star thinks Larys Strong has “a plan”

House of the Dragon is getting its full cast up and running. You’ve got rivals Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower, you’ve got firestarters like Daemon Targaryen, you’ve got a growing pool of younger characters eager to make their mark, and then you’ve got Larys Strong, who is a bit of a mystery.

This is a guy who comes off as very mild mannered, but who is also willing to murder his father and brother based on an errant comment from his patron. That was in Episode 6, when he burned Harrenhal in order to free up a position on the Small Council. Queen Alicent Hightower was horrified when she learned what he did, but she didn’t stop working with him, either.

“What I love about that scene and what I love doing with [Olivia Cooke] is, as much as it’s a power move and it’s him putting her squarely in his pocket, as it were, there’s also an element of the game,” actor Matthew Needham told Entertainment Weekly. “‘I will do all this, I will get all this blood on my hands, and you are able to plead naivety.’ I wouldn’t say it’s romantic, but there’s an underlying… it’s not erotic, but there’s some sort of frisson there for Larys. She gets to say, ‘I didn’t want this,’ and I know she did. So that’s what I thought I was going for in those scenes. It’s this, ‘We’re both on the same side here.’ But I obviously just look mad. Maybe I’m just mad, I don’t know.”

Larys Strong has “got a plan”

There’s a lot we don’t know about Larys Strong. In his book Fire & Blood, author George R.R. Martin keeps his motives intentionally vague. The mystery is intriguing to Needham, although he does think that Larys is working an angle. “I think he’s got a plan,” the actor said. “I think he’s got a direction. I think you can’t be just enigmatic for enigmatic’s sake, just lounging around smoking with nowhere to go. That’d be awful.”

"No, I think he’s got something he’s trying to achieve. They’ve created this incredible character, this man who acts on the world and makes things happen despite looking like he couldn’t hurt a fly. I think he knows where he wants to go. I think he’s got plans, and he’s had, well, all his life to come up with them. So he’s prepared."

Larys Strong actor sees the Littlefinger/Varys comparisons

A lot of fans have compared Larys to Varys and Littlefinger, the two schemers in chief from Game of Thrones. Needham sees the comparison, but cautions against fans assuming they know Larys because they knew the other two guys. “[T]he ‘chaos is a ladder’ way of life is something they share,” the actor said. “Those are wonderful actors and performances, but I didn’t go and study them. I just felt like it’s its own beast. And it’s different writers. It might be in the same world, but it felt like a different show. I don’t think I would be doing anyone a favor by trying to replicate someone else’s performance, ’cause it’s been done beyond perfectly by those guys. I don’t think either of those guys burnt their family alive. I’m sure they did other horrible things, but he’s his own strange guy, I think. He’s on his own path.”

One of the things that separates Larys from Varys or Littlefinger is the performance. I’ve really enjoyed how Needham has been playing him as this quiet, almost shy person…who just happens to be capable of committing fratricide and patricide. “We found the most satisfying to do was playing him quite polite, to fight against any sort of darkness that he was doing, to do it quite matter-of-fact,” Needham said. “When we were doing it, it was like, ‘That feels crunchy.’ But we tried a number of ways, so it’s interesting to see what they end up using.”

Catch the continuing adventures of Larys Strong when House of the Dragon continues on Sundays on HBO and HBO Max.

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