House of the Dragon actor teases dragon fights, complex shots and more in season 2

Just like in the second season of Game of Thrones back in the day, the second season of the prequel show House of the Dragon will introduce us to a number of new characters, or give bigger roles to walk-on characters who we only briefly met in season 1. One of them is Ser Lorent Marbrand, a knight in the Queensguard for Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen. He’s played by Max Wrottesley, who talked to Voice of Oldtown about his expanded role in season 2.

According to Wrottesley, Ser Lorent will get to mix it up with a dragon or two in the new episodes. That requires playing opposite a monstrous beast that isn’t actually there. “[T]here was a couple of days where we were doing a lot of eyeline fighting,” he said, “there’s this here and there’s that there, there’s a dragon there and there’s a dragon moving over there. And one of our directors was insanely good at performing dragon for us. So that was a really fun day at the office because they really lent in and we had dragon breath and dragon roars and all the stuff. So you’re reacting to this imagined, enormous terrifying beast. But actually your director is sort of just on the sound stage there filling it up for you. So that was fun and funny.”

We’re not sure which of the directors for season 2 Wrottesley is talking about, but we already want behind-the-scenes footage.

House of the Dragon season 2 is “gonna be big. You guys are gonna like it.”

We expect whatever dragon scene Wrottesley is talking about to be visually spectacular. The first season already set the bar for that very high, and if the trailer is any indication, it’s only going to get better from here:

But it won’t be all about the dragons, which are largely created after the fact with CGI. Wrottesley also described what sounds like a fantastic and ambitious shot: “I did a scene towards the end of the shoot which just had this unbelievably balletic kind of crane move, which started at the top of the stairs [and] came down and panned around and picked up another character and pushed through and opened up…and then it hits the dolly and then it moves again and then it pans around,” he remembered. “People will see it and they probably won’t realize just how much work went into that 10 seconds from the planning forward…from working out the shot to it being kind of talked through with the crew to us actually getting there and doing it. So there’s lots of that…it’s a very ambitious show.”

That kind of shot is difficult to get, but according to Wrottesley, everyone on the House of the Dragon set is cooperative and ready to put their best foot forward. “I mean, it’s just the nicest set, to be on. I [could] tell you no horror stories. I had a really joyous time,” he said. “What’s great is you trust your leaders when they know what they’re doing. And when you’ve got somebody like [showrunner Ryan Condal]…and you’ve got…[director Claire Kilner] and all these amazing directors that we’ve got and [producer Sara Hess] and…this whole gang of people at the top of the tree who have done the work, they’ve done the preparation…Ryan will have an answer for anything you bring to him.”

"And then you have HBO who have made the effort to hire the absolute best camera team, the absolute best camera operators…the level of talent and ability that they’ve brought together to make this show. It’s a wonderful situation to find yourself in, and I think excellence breeds excellence; the more people care about it and want to help each other out, the better the show becomes. And I definitely got a sense both seasons that it’s just a very happy workplace…We all want it to be great, and I think a lot of us are fans anyway, fans of great TV, regardless of whether it’s Game of Thrones or anything else. But wanting to give the best every day to get the best result for the fans and for the people who are going to see the show at the end."

Hopefully House of the Dragon season 2 is worth all the work Wrottesley and others put into it when it premieres on HBO and Max sometime next summer. “It’s gonna be big,” Wrottesley finished. “You guys are gonna like it.”

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