House of the Dragon: Paddy Considine is “completely at peace” with Viserys’ fate

Throughout House of the Dragon season 1, King Viserys Targaryen (Paddy Considine) was the glue that held the Seven Kingdoms together. The show did a fantastic job of tracing his progression from a king in his prime to a withered old man, burdened by the crown that lay heavy on his head. His entire character arc was covered in one season, including his demise. Despite seeing his character get killed off so early, star Paddy Considine is very satisfied with how Viserys was written.

“I was completely at peace with it because when I’d read all the scripts, I just thought there was such a fantastic arc, and I thought his death was perfect,” Considine told Entertainment Weekly. “He was one of those guys that, once he’d gone, everybody realized how valuable he was. So there was a lot of mixed emotions in hindsight about him.”

"I don’t think I’ve ever loved a character as much as I’ve loved him. I think it was an honor to have been offered him, and it gave me a fantastic opportunity, that character. He was for me, he was meant for me."

Paddy Considine wished he got to ride a dragon…at first

Well, Considine does have one regret: Viserys never got to ride a dragon. “I was jealous early on. I’ve got a little nephew and he loves dragons. This was his thing. And when it broke, ‘Your uncle Paddy’s gonna be the king of the dragons,’ his face was like, ‘Oh, great!’ And he starts asking questions: ‘Do you have a sword? Do you fight?’ ‘No. No, I don’t fight.’ ‘Do you fly dragons?’ ‘No.’ And you see his face like going, ‘What do you do?’ I’m like, ‘Well, I just sit on my ass all day on a spiky chair.'”

That said, once Considine heard about what riding a dragon meant for the actors, the jealousy soon wore off. “I was envious until I heard what an absolute drag is sitting up on that thing for 12 hours a day.”

The one House of the Dragon scene Paddy Considine struggles to watch

As you can tell, Considine got very close to this role, to the point where it’s hard for him to watch some of the more painful scenes. Naturally, that includes Viserys’ death, and not necessarily for the reasons you’d think.

“There’s something about that final moment that just shocked me because I looked like my father looked when he was dying,” Considine said. “It didn’t just remind me of him, I looked the image of my father when he died. It was really tough [to watch].”

Paddy Considine on the incredible practical effects used to age Viserys

The makeup department on House of the Dragon had their work cut out for them making Considine look like a dying old man for Episode 8, “The Lord of the Tides.” His skin was ghostly pale, his body frighteningly frail, but he was still trying to do his duty as king.

“A huge percentage of it was practical,” Considine said of the process. “It was about four and a half hours, probably a tiny bit longer. It was a long time in the makeup chair for the episode 8 look which was my final look. There was a lot of that work going on with the prosthetics and the finishing touches with the CGI, like the holes in the cheek and the eye socket and things like that. Also a thinning of the face because we shot so much out of story order when we were making the show, I couldn’t go on some crazy crash diet.”

HBO has yet to set a release date for House of the Dragon season 2, but new episodes are expected sometime in 2024. Meanwhile, HBO continues to invest heavily in the franchise; most recently, they announced a live-action adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s Dunk and Egg stories. The new show is called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight. More on that here:

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