House of the Dragon star explains what it means to be in the Kingsguard

It takes a village to raise a child and to make a TV show, and HBO House of the Dragon has employed several villages worth of people in its cast. There are dozens of characters on this show, some of whom we only briefly met in season 1 but will get to know better in season 2.

That includes Ser Lorent Marbrand, a knight of the Kingsguard who chose to remain loyal to Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen rather than pledge his allegiance to her half-brother King Aegon after their father King Viserys died and precipitated a succession crisis. Of course, he didn’t have much choice, what with Rhaenyra’s husband Daemon Targaryen threatening him and his fellow Kingsguard knight with dragonfire:

We only meet Ser Lorent briefly towards the end of season 1; he’s around, for example, in the scene where Daemon crowns Rhaenyra as queen. Speaking to Voice of Oldtown, the actor behind Ser Lorent, Max Wrottesley, named this as one of his favorite scenes from the first season. “I remember standing in Monsanto with the sun coming up and this unbelievable landscape spreading out and all the beautiful extras in their extraordinary costumes. And I had that total kind of moment like, ‘wow, I’m in this, this is this cool thing to be at work for.’ I love that scene.”

We’ll be seeing more of Wrottesley and Ser Lorent in season 2 as the Dance of the Dragons gets underway. As a Kingsugard knight, Ser Lorent takes his duty seriously, even if he was forced into it at the mouth of a dragon. “[F]or Sir Lorent, [honor] is paramount,” Wrottesley said. “That is the decision that he’s made, that’s the life he’s chosen, and [he] feels very honored to have been selected for that.

"If you read the actual oath that the White Cloaks have to make it’s pretty serious…You decide you’re not going to have Children, you won’t take title, you won’t have your land. But what you gain from it is this sort of sense of duty and the sense of loyalty to the crown that is an unparalleled position of trust, I suppose."

For the record, Wrottesley is the kind of guy who would know the Kinsguard oath, even though we haven’t heard it on House of the Dragon yet. He was a fan of Game of Thrones before joining the prequel show, has read the Song of Ice and Fire novels, and came into this gig ready to commit himself. And for bits of mythology he doesn’t know, he can always ask showrunner Ryan Condal and producer Sara Hess. “They’re incredibly well prepared and and researched,” Wrottesley said.

Wrottesley has thought a lot about the role of the Kingsguard in particular. “They are servants. They’re guards more than anything else. They’re not equals with the people they’re looking after, but there is a level of respect given to the White Cloaks that is above and beyond…If you are selected…it’s an extraordinary honor,” he said. “I think that’s how Sir Lorent sees it, that he’s won the right to have this position within the court. And it’s something he’s genuinely proud of.”

"It’s sort of like you take on a new family…These are the people that you are loyal to above everybody else. And once you’ve made that vow…they are number one and then number two can be whatever else it is…And that’s always the way I felt about Marbrand. I think he is single-mindedly focused on protecting [Rhaenyra]. He wakes up in the morning and that’s his job and that will be his job before he goes to sleep at night and he will worry about it all day long…I’m always trying to keep as vigilant as possible around her."

Hearing Wrottesley go into detail like this, it makes me wish the first season of House of the Dragon had dug a little deeper into what being in the Kingsguard means, as for example including a deleted scene where we see Criston Cole get inducted. But there’s always season 2.

House of the Dragon season 2 will be “a wild ride”

Before we go, we have to include Wrottesley’s comments about the kind of armor he gets to wear as the member of the Kinsguard…or has to wear, depending on how you look at it. “The armor is quite rigid, but actually the problem comes with the weight of the cloak,” he said. “The cloak hangs on the shoulder and it kind of pulls you into a slight stress position where there’s so much weight on it that you kind of have to stand incredibly tall with the weight on your shoulders.”

"It was better this season. They did a few alterations within the costume since last year…We had different gorgets…Last year they just never stayed down. Like the poor costume guys would just be coming up all the time, just kind of just pushing you in the chest and trying to keep it down. So that was all redesigned for this year, made out of different material."

Apparently the Kingsguard costumes are hard on the back, so keep that in mind for potentially Halloween costumes. “But yeah, it does look pretty cool,” Wrottesley finished. All worth it.

The second season of House of the Dragon will air on HBO and Max sometime in the summer of 2024. “Tune in,” Wrottesley said. “It’s gonna be a wild ride.”

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