7 actors who should play Aegon the Conqueror in new Game of Thrones prequel

This week, news broke that HBO is considering making a Game of Thrones prequel series about Aegon I Targaryen’s conquest of Westeros. This is a pivotal point in Westerosi history which is referred to in just about every single one of author George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire novels. To see it on screen would be epic.

Of course, this begs the question of who should play Aegon the Conqueror. Aegon’s Conquest happened around 300 years before the events of Game of Thrones, but thanks to George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood, we do have some idea of what Aegon looked like at least. He is described as a tall, broad-shouldered warrior with few equals, but also an intelligent ruler well-versed in history and governance. Aegon is not a brute, nor is he meek. To play him, an actor will have to be able to embody both his ruthlessness as well as the compassionate side, which he demonstrated to pardon some of his greatest enemies once they bent the knee.

We also know Aegon’s age. He was around 25 at the start of the Conquest. By the time First Dornish War finished, he was closer to 40. That gives us a bit of flexibility when casting the part, but only a bit. Part of Aegon’s legend is that he’s essentially a young upstart who sets out to unite the Seven Kingdoms and (mostly) does, together with his sister-wives Rhaenys and Visenya.

Let’s dreamcast a few actors who we think could pull off this role and lead the Game of Thrones franchise to another victory.

1. Henry Cavill should play Aegon the Conqueror

Perhaps the most popular fan cast for Aegon right now is Henry Cavill, best known for playing Superman in the DCEU and the monster hunter Geralt of Rivia in Netflix’s The Witcher. Fans have been dreaming of casting Cavill as Aegon for a long time. He even wears a silver-white wig on The Witcher; he’s practically there already.

Jokes aside, Cavill has the kind of balance an actor needs to play Aegon. As Geralt, he can be vicious when necessary but has a heart of gold buried underneath. He performs many of his own stunts in that show, so we know he’d have the physicality to pull off the many battles and duels that Aegon participates in before he builds the Iron Throne.

Casting Cavill might be a little too on-the-nose at this point given how many fans have clamored for it, but there’s little doubt that he would crush the part.

2. Jamie Campbell Bower should play Aegon the Conqueror

While Henry Cavill might fit the strapping warrior king idea of Aegon, I think that any show looking to cast this part should be willing to think outside the box. After all, these physical descriptions are centuries old, so there’s plenty of room for interpretation. And given how many Targaryens we’ve seen who have a sort of lean dangerousness to them, like Viserys from Game of Thrones or Daemon from House of the Dragon, I think it would behoove HBO to at least consider casting someone with a similar physicality for Aegon.

Enter Jamie Campbell Bower, best known for playing Vecna in Stranger Things season 4. Campbell Bower gave a breakout performance as the arch-nemesis to the kids from Hawkins, Indiana, showcasing how he could be both gentle and unassuming as well as outright terrifying. Those talents would go a long way toward bringing someone as complex as Aegon to life.

For as much as Aegon does have that legendary warrior king reputation, it’s important to remember that at first he was seriously underestimated by the lords of Westeros. This was crucial to his campaign to unite the kingdoms, since he then flipped that conception of him on its head by winning a streak of bloody victories with the help of his sisters and dragon. Campbell Bower pulled off this exact sort of reversal in Stranger Things, seeming helpless at first before revealing that he was easily the most dangerous person in the room. He could bring a lot of nuance to a role like Aegon.

Appearing as Aegon wouldn’t even be Campbell Bower’s first time in Westeros; he was also a lead in HBO’s canceled Game of Thrones spinoff Blood Moon. Give him another chance to visit the Seven Kingdoms, HBO!

3. Aaron Taylor-Johnson should play Aegon the Conqueror

If you had asked me a few years ago whether I thought Aaron-Taylor Johnson could have pulled off a role like Aegon, I would have been hesitant. But after seeing him in movies like Godzilla and Bullet Train, I think it’s safe to say that he can exude the kind of gravitas required for a character like Aegon, while also giving him a slightly more scrappy edge. And while it’s maybe not the best example of his acting, we’ve even seen him rock a white wig before in Avengers: Age of Ultron. He’s got the look and the talent!

Taylor-Johnson has a lot of experience playing action heroes as well as characters with surprisingly dense emotional lives. At 32, he’s the youngest actor on the list so far as well. For my money, he could believably play someone in their late twenties as well as someone much older, which would be important if the Aegon show went on for a while and covered different parts of his reign.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson also comes with the added bonus that while he’s done a lot of genre stuff in the past, he’s never had an iconic enough role in his adult life that he’s associated with sci-fi and fantasy specifically. With Cavill, the Geralt comparisons will be inevitable; same for Campbell Bower and Vecna. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is an established actor with a huge range, but playing Aegon could provide him with a breakout role. He’d be Aegon first, with no baggage attached, a breath of fresh air in Westeros!

4. Sam Claflin should play Aegon the Conqueror

Next up, we have Daisy Jones and the Six star Sam Claflin. Credit must be given where it’s due: both Taylor-Johnson and Claflin first came to my attention as ideas for Aegon through a fun Reddit thread musing on dreamcast possibilities. And while I had seen Taylor-Johnson in enough movies to immediately picture what he’d be like as a Targaryen, I was far less familiar with Claflin.

It took me watching one scene from Peaky Blinders, where Claflin plays the ruthless politician Oswald Mosley, to understand why he’d totally kill it as Aegon. Claflin’s character in that show is refined yet dangerous, a man who instantly makes the hardened criminals around him blanch. He has an air of command which would perfect for playing Aegon the Conqueror. He’s also the right age and has the right physique. Aegon is a character who needs to appear powerful without necessarily flexing that power at every opportunity, and that seems to be something Claflin is excellent at.

But perhaps the biggest point in Claflin’s favor is his immense range; in recent years, he’s played ’70s rock musician Billy Dunne in Daisy Jones and the Six and suffering aristocrat William Traynor in Me Before You (opposite Emilia Clarke no less)! All of these roles are extremely different, but he pulls them off so believably that it only takes a few minutes of watching his performance to totally lose yourself in it. There’s no question he’d be a boon to the Aegon’s Conquest series.

5. Timothée Chalamet should play Aegon the Conqueror

I’m going to be honest with you right up front: I don’t love the idea of Timothée Chalamet playing Aegon I Targaryen, but someone offered it up as an option during the most recent episode of our Take the Black podcast and now I can’t get it out of my head. This feels like such a cliché choice that I want to dismiss it outright. And yet…

Chalamet recently distinguished himself as the star of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune movies. He plays Paul Atreides, the last scion of a noble house whose family is assassinated. When last we saw Paul, he’s heading out into the desert to live amongst the native Freman people of Arrakis, but readers of Frank Herbert’s Dune books know that he eventually comes back as a mighty warlord who avenges the wrongs done to his house while simultaneously upending the status quo of the entire galaxy.

The similarities between Paul and Aegon are uncanny, to the point where there’s no doubt Chalamet could handle the part. At 27 years old, he’s actually the perfect age to play Aegon, and would fit that unconventional Targaryen look we talked about earlier with Jamie Campbell Bower.

Casting Chalamet sounds like an obvious Hollywood ploy to bring in a big name. But at the same time, the show could do a lot worse. Of all the actors we’ve discussed, Chalamet might actually be the best qualified.

6. Charlie Huunam should play Aegon the Conqueror

From the youngest actor in the lot, we head next to the oldest. Charlie Hunnam got his big break on FX’s Sons of Anarchy, where he played Jax Teller, the heir to the show’s titular biker gang. Since then, Hunnam has gone on to appear in movies like Pacific Rim and Shantaram, but to many fans he’ll always be the upstart biker who struggled to get his family business out from under the thumb of his ruthless stepfather Clay (Ron Perlman).

That role is the one that best qualifies Hunnam to play someone like Aegon. Jax is an idealist who dreams of a better future for his loved ones, not unlike how Aegon dreams of a different path for the Seven Kingdoms. However, Jax is also prone to violence and scandals, which is true of pretty much every noble living in Westeros. Hunnam has the look of an Aegon Targaryen; put him in some armor and a white wig and he’ll be good to go.

There’s one sticking point, however: age. As of this writing Hunnam is 42 — not old by any means, but perhaps too old to convincingly portray Aegon during his mid-twenties. If HBO was making this show 10 years ago, Hunnam would have been the obvious choice for the part.

But hey, there are no shortage of ways to work around that. Perhaps they could age Aegon up slightly, or use costuming and makeup to make Hunnam appear younger for the early part of the series? Either way, the most important thing is charisma and acting skill, and Hunnam has those things in spades.

7. An unknown actor should play Aegon the Conqueror

For all the incredible actors out there with big names and even bigger resumés who could play Aegon the Conqueror, the best choice of all would be to cast an unknown actor in the role. Both Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon have elevated a lot of actors who were either just starting out or hadn’t had a huge breakout role yet, like Kit Harington, Emilia Clarke, Milly Alcock and Maisie Williams. The Aegon’s Conquest series would do well to continue that tradition by spotlighting both established actors as well as lesser-known talents.

Considering how important Aegon is, it would be best to cast an actor about whom audiences have no preconceptions. This worked spectacularly for characters like the Stark children and Rhaenyra Targaryen, so there’s no reason to think it wouldn’t work for the likes of Aegon, Visenya and Rhaenys, as long as HBO did their due diligence and found the right people. Better-known actors could still have a part to play, but HBO should be open to looking elsewhere.

It’ll likely be a while until we know whether this series will actually happen. House of the Dragon is due to start filming its second season soon, and since HBO has taken its time with that spinoff, we have every reason to expect them to take it slow with the Aegon show. They could even hold it back until House of the Dragon is finished telling the story of the Dance of the Dragons, turning into a Targaryen anthology series.

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