Not that long ago, Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke took the fantasy television world by storm with their portrayals of Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower in House of the Dragon.
While their powerful performances could easily fool anyone otherwise, D’Arcy and Cooke had never watched Game of Thrones before being cast in this prequel. The two recently opened up in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter about their prolonged audition process.
“My partner and I cobbled together a wig out of literally a bag of hair and then after three months of doing that, I was invited for a four- or five-hour in-person audition, did that, and then after that, I was told, ‘You’ll hear something next week.'” D’Arcy recalled. “And then I didn’t.”
"Then I was told it was probably not going my way. And I thought, “Wow, it’s a real shame.” I went to the countryside, just for the weekend, to start metabolizing, and at the end of that weekend I had about 14 missed calls from my agent. I spoke to him the next morning to hear, “They changed their mind! Do you want to do it?” So weird, honestly. A very solitary process that went on seemingly half a year."
Neither Emma D’Arcy nor Olivia Cooke had watched Game of Thrones before being cast in House of the Dragon
When asked how they prepared for their roles, Olivia Cooke said that it involved diving into Game of Thrones and everything around it:
"We both went on a bit of a deep dive into Game of Thrones — because neither of us had seen it before — and read the book, read the scripts, and chatted endlessly with [showrunners] Ryan [Condal] and Miguel [Sapochnik] and [writer and executive producer] Sara Hess. And that was it, really. I didn’t really do much soul-searching or anything like that."
Set nearly 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon has few direct links with the original show. However, the older series gives you a great idea of the world where the new show takes place.
Learning High Valyrian has “paid dividends” for House of the Dragon star Emma D’Arcy
Both Milly Alcock and Emma D’Arcy, the two actors who played Rhaenyra, had to learn High Valyrian for some of their scenes with Matt Smith (Daemon Targaryen). D’Arcy revealed that she found the process of learning and “unpicking” High Valyrian quite satisfying. She now can say basic phrases in the language, such as “ordering a cappuccino or hailing a cab.”
"We get sent the English translation, the High Valyrian, a phonetic translation, and then also audio recordings, and one [method] would be to try and parrot back the audio recordings. It’s ideal as an actor to be able to command the language you’re having to use. I had a really nice time using gestures, for example, to embed meaning into unfamiliar language. And now I have an incredible rolling R. So really, it’s paid back dividends."
HBO renewed House of the Dragon for a second season pretty much right after series premiere aired. However, filming for the next season will not start until early 2023. We likely won’t see any new episodes until 2024.
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