If you thought you had Aemond Targaryen figured out, Ewan Mitchell wants a word. The actor behind House of the Dragon's terrifying one-eyed prince is teasing a major change for his character in season 3 and the comparison he's reaching for is Travis Bickle, Robert De Niro's iconic slow-burning powder keg from Martin Scorsese's 1976 masterpiece Taxi Driver.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly as part of a season 3 cover story alongside co-stars Emma D’Arcy and Tom Glynn-Carney, Mitchell made clear that this year is a step change in what we're going to learn about the character he's been building since season 1. Season 3 opens with the Battle of the Gullet, a massive sea-and-dragon spectacular that Mitchell says will amp things up immediately: "It's all-out war. It's just a blitz straight out of the gate."
But beyond the battles, Mitchell told EW that he had been looking forward to pulling back the layers on Aemond in a way the show hasn't fully done yet. He'd spent two seasons building this mythic horror-icon quality for the prince. Season 3, he explained, was his chance to complicate that and reach for something more human underneath the armor.
It was in explaining that shift that he landed on the Taxi Driver comparison.
Where we left Aemond
By the end of season 2, Aemond had become the most dangerous person in King's Landing and arguably in all of Westeros. With his brother, King Aegon II, badly burned and out of the picture (injuries that, let's not forget, Aemond himself caused at the Battle of Rook's Rest), Prince Aemond had effectively seized control as Prince Regent.
He spent the season consolidating power in ways that were equal parts brilliant and chilling. By the finale, with Aegon smuggled out of King's Landing by Larys Strong and Rhaenyra Targaryen preparing to march on the capital, Aemond was poised to make his biggest move yet. The Iron Throne is sitting vacant and Vhagar, the largest living dragon in the world, is at his command.
He's been terrifying all along. But Mitchell is saying season 3 is something different.
The Travis Bickle connection with Aemond in season 3
Drawing parallels to Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver, Mitchell told EW that what stuck with him was that specific moment midway through the film, the one where Bickle jolts you into realizing your read on him was completely wrong from the start.
"How on earth could I ever think that I understood that character in the first place?" Mitchell said. "You barely recognize him."
And that's exactly the effect he's going for in season 3.
"I was really looking forward to pulling back that veneer," he added, "taking him out of that Terminator-esque horror-icon movie and making him more human."
And yet, in the same breath, Mitchell described his character as "the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse" who is "coming in shock and awe." Season 3 Aemond will be bloodying his sword, storming Harrenhal with Vhagar and making ruthless moves on the Iron Throne while his brother is absent.
Aemond has spent his entire life as a spare, defined by the eye his cousin took from him as a boy. He has built an entire identity around being smarter and more ruthless than anyone who ever doubted him. And now, with the throne within reach and no one left to stop him, season 3 is going to show us what that identity actually costs.
"Aemond is almost this force, an ideal that is relentless," Mitchell said. "He's just continually moving, sometimes at the expense of everyone else."
Aemond's arc will run parallel to an absent Aegon and a Rhaenyra who is finally, after two seasons of playing defense, going fully on the offensive. Everything is set for the character Mitchell has been building since season 1 to reach what he called a genuine turning point where viewers will have to confront how much they thought they knew about the prince they've been watching.
House of the Dragon season 3 premieres June 21 on HBO, and by all accounts it opens at a full sprint. We know the Battle of the Gullet kicks things off immediately, and Mitchell promises the rest of the season doesn't let up.
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