Original subtitles

This is a nightmare.

It was kind of a fun night, in a weird way.

We were rehearsing that for months and months

leading up to it.

Ultimately, it's like a dance. It's like choreography.

It was really cool.

You're like, "Okay, let's do this."

RYAN J. CONDAL: Episode six was one of the big leaps for us,

because you're not only jumping forward ten years in time,

but you're recasting...

you're recasting the show midway through.

We always spoke of it as our second pilot.

You come in on Rhaenyra giving birth,

and then the slow reveal being that this is her third,

and that much time has passed.

There's a ten-year time jump. You see her now husband Laenor.

Harwin Strong, he's the actual father of all of these children.

Viserys is slowly deteriorating, and Alicent, meanwhile,

is strong and in her prime, and sort of running things.

There's a lot of ground to cover.

Making a determined time jump and then changing the main cast,

it's just a brilliant way to do it.

We talked a lot about who should shift into being older versions of themselves,

and we felt that Rhaenyra, Alicent, Laena and Laenor,

they were important, they were all interacting with each other heavily,

and they had experienced that passage of time together,

and it was a good way of grounding the time jump.

The queen has requested

that the child be brought to her.

Immediately.

Why?

I remember the phrase that Ryan said about Rhaenyra,

which is "she needs to be punk rock, non-conventional."

You're looking at the Targaeryan line,

you're looking at the Emilia Clarke association

further down the line.

You know, you're looking at the woman that set everything

in motion, and that has to be a force of nature.

Somebody with intelligence and feels other-worldly.

And that's Emma.

Emma does not fit into a slot that is easy.

Emma is such a striking, unique presence.

When I first saw them in the audition,

it was like I couldn't imagine the role being played by anybody else.

With Alicent and Rhaenyra, we were focusing

on the adult versions first.

I had to keep reminding everybody

the people that were going to be leading the charge

were going to be their younger versions.

Milly Alcock, she read and it was just a gift

from the gods. We were very lucky.

She is a remarkable version for younger Emma.

I see them in the costume and I'm like...

"Is that what I'm gonna...

I look great!"

Rhaenyra. You should be resting after your labors.

Olivia is probably the most seasoned actress of them.

We wanted her in the show. She did such a strong audtition.

We got Olivia to read for Rhaenyra as well

and she did astonishing reads for both of them.

It became clearer that she would be better suited to Alicent,

and certainly, once we'd met Emily,

the pair of them were wonderful.

Olivia, I've been in awe of her work for years,

and so to play the younger version of her

is a blessing.

Miguel and Ryan had said Alicent is probably the character

that changes the most in that time jump.

There are multiple things that we both portrayed

through Alicent that connects the two characters together.

But where my Alicent leaves and where hers begins,

they are almost completely different people.

If Rhaenyra comes into power,

your very life could be forfeit.

I do feel like we lucked out with our Alicents

and our Rhaenyras.

I think for me, it's always about the energy.

Milly and Emily reflected the energy of Emma and Olivia.

The show is very demanding just in terms

of the sheer number of actors

but also the quality of the performer

because they're deeply nuanced roles.

Kate brought forward an amazing pool.

It took a lot of doing but we were able to put together a hell of a cast.

A boy. I've just heard.

- Yes. - Well done.

In order to play Laenor as we find him in episode six,

I really had to know exactly who he was before the time jump.

But I was cast first and started filming

and looked up and I saw this person walk in.

And I looked at him, and then he looked at me...

We'd seen each other across the room, and I was like...

I said, "Are you me?" And he went, "Yes."

I had some talks with Miguel and he gave me a few treats

about the character that he would say

to the other girls as well, I think.

There are similar things that I'm guessing they'll say

to all of us about our characters.

I haven't met them.

It's going to be exciting to see who they are

and how they interpret the character.

I've never done that part where I've shared with an actor before.

I asked to meet them and Miguel was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah,"

and never set it up. So I was like,

"I think this is a strategic move on their part."

It's a complicated thing because even when you're not watching that work,

you are building something together.

When I'm Queen, I will create a new order.

It was really important that Miguel direct episode six

to set the tone for the time jump

because the visual tone of the show changes

and becomes less original Game of Thrones

and more specific to House of The Dragon.

We made the decision that instead of jumping

between characters as you normally would,

to stay with each character for a much longer time

so you could settle into their world

and into their head.

I think it just routes you into each of their worlds

and where they are right away.

It was new actors playing new roles.

We were going to spend more time with the characters

actually moving with them.

We're saying to you this person that you got used to, Milly,

is no longer Rhaenyra, she's Emma.

We wanted our audience to have an opportunity

to really examine that particular actor

and feel comfortable with them,

and this seemed like a really good way to do it.

EMMA D'ARCY: For five episodes, an audience have sat with this person,

have fallen in love with this person,

have developed affection for them,

and then suddenly, I'm going to walk in

and change their face and body and tell them to like me.

D'ARCY: You come in on the back foot in a way.

The moment Rhaenyra gives birth, until she meets Alicent

was not in the original script.

- She wants to see him. - Now?

I thought, "Well, if we're going to have this set,

I would like us to inhabit it properly,"

which is why the opening actually follows our characters

in a single continuous take all the way through.

We are turning back, all right?

We needed to come in on this relationship

that you completely bought and I don't think

there's any other way of buying it

than spending time with them.

What happy news this morning.

Indeed, Your Grace.

We needed everybody to kind of jump in,

and the feeling is if you're gonna hang in

for the first 20 minutes and realize what's going on

and follow it, then you'll be in for the ride.

Action!

Well, we know that we've got the two characters,

so we have to take elements of one across to the other

and vice versa, and you do it to make it look

practically the best that you can.

We used elements of some of the very early episodes of the plaiting.

The wig is obviously the same color palette.

It's lots of little things that we do,

things like eyebrows and lip shape.

I normally find a mole or a freckle or something

and continue that across.

We go through a more youthful look

to get the changeover between cast.

Working with Olivia, it was really interesting

to see the development of the character

having jumped on the years, and when we see her,

she's a really confident queen.

We used fantastic fabrics on her.

Really luxurious and extravagant,

and it just carried on the evolvement of the character.

Six-Bravo take two, common board on Echo and Golf.

Action!

The change of age, the change of social situation,

I dressed up Milly and I dressed up Emma.

They are two different personalities,

two different actresses, because there's a difference

between a teenager and a woman.

D'ARCY: The thing that I really like about it is that,

actually, when I think about myself as a younger person,

I don't always recognize them or I perceive them to be

a different person to the one I am now.

I think the poetry and the form is that there's obviously

lots that carries through, but we allow that younger self

to be a different person to an extent.

Emma D'Arcy and Olivia Cooke's portrayal

of Rhaenyra and Alicent are so compelling,

that I think you have no choice

but to buckling up and going along for the ride.

We're in Pinto because I really wanted

to shoot something in Spain, and gradually

I was talking myself out of doing

any of the fun stuff on this show,

and generally getting stuck in, like, a quarry in Belfast,

which is where I usually spend most of my time shooting.

So we had seen these photos of this beautiful

Moorish castle in Spain.

I loved that castle from the first time

Jim showed us pictures of it because it looks like

something from Game of Thrones, because the exterior is Moorish

and the interior is sort of Italian revival,

and it's a fantasy place that's real.

When I saw the castle, I was like, "Where is it?"

And then you see it up on a hill and it was just beautiful.

It's something when you're on location that's just special.

I think it's important, I think a show like this,

a lot of it is studio based and I think the more big, grand

location stuff you can do, the better, really,

because it needs to feel outdoors and it needs to have scale.

To Aegon The Conqueror, our exalted Forbear.

Aegon The Conqueror.

To Aegon.

It is a stunning location,

and when you come here

because it's such a solid-looking castle,

you've got no idea how ornate the interior is.

So we wanted to preserve that surprise, if you like.

In some ways, as a concept artist, you can relax a bit

because the architecture is already there,

it's already sort of been designed for you.

So it's just a case of recreating it.

Somewhere as old as that, the first time that was seen,

birds had been living in it for years and years and years,

so it needed a real thorough kind of hazmat clean.

We had to paint the whole thing,

painted all the walls the darker tones.

We built library shelves in there, and turned the whole,

kind of top floor of the courtyard into Daemon's library.

We created about 2000 books in the end,

but we cheated it,

because you only see the front 50 mill of the spine,

and we would cast them out in biscuit foam,

which is a lightweight material,

and the finish is what makes it really,

you couldn't tell they weren't full books in the end.

The library was quite challenging,

but the beauty of it is when the light comes through

down the center of the courtyard.

The light that hits all the different furniture,

and color and leather and texture and fabric,

is beautiful, absolutely beautiful.

They are using us.

Refreshing isn't it?

The art department did an amazing job

that it looked so natural,

and it looks that it's always been there,

that at the end, they ask if they can keep it.

You have to work around the health and safety elements there that, you know,

people will fall through the floor

if you have too many people in that corner.

But we made it work, and we have to believe it as we found it,

short of putting the bird ship back in.

Six was written by Sara Hess,

and Sara and I have worked together before on House.

She actually wrote the first episode of television that I directed.

It was about getting away from where we had been.

And Pentos is, effectively, you know, it's kind of-- It's Morocco, it's Ibiza.

It's like-- it's somewhere far away that's kind of nice,

and you don't really need to come back from.

It was a little-- just an island, where we were doing all these scenes.

And it really felt, in that moment, like we were far away from everything,

and making this little domestic drama.

And yeah, it has a really interesting feeling to it

that I think is different from everything that's come before it.

We are not minstrels or mummers

who play at the pleasure of an alien prince.

The Pentos story in episode six is a bit of a short film.

So much was going on in the Westeros side of the story

that we only had so much time to devote to it.

So we were like, "Okay, what are the three or four key beats that we have to hit?

And how do we dramatize them in a super efficient way

that feels like you're moving through a story quickly,

but not that-- just that you're ticking boxes as you go along?"

This point, that felt natural.

So I think you do it until, you know...

- Let's do the same thing. - Yeah.

Honestly, I mean, I can say this 'cause I didn't write it, Sara wrote it,

but it's one of my favorite sequences in the whole show.

But you are more than this, Daemon.

The man I married is more than this.

Everyone knows that Harwin is, in fact, the father of Rhaenyra's children.

No one will admit it, because the King has decreed that it isn't so.

And this is an opportunity to push Harwin's buttons.

Harwin Strong is from the Riverlands.

That's where the Trident all intersects.

He's known to be an incredible knight.

Strangely enough, they call him Breakbones

because I think he has a reputation for breaking a few bones.

Rowley choreographed quite an elaborate fight between them.

And I came and had a look, and said, "No..."

Most fights are over pretty quickly.

And if someone like Harwin,

who we've established as being a one punch kinda guy,

if he lays into you and you are un-protected, it's over.

Your interest in the princeling's training is quite unusual, Commander.

Most men would only have that kind of devotion towards a cousin, or... a brother...

Or a son.

Harwin gets baited, and he takes the bait.

It was really stupid.

It's really an impulsive reaction to the threat of his family.

Say it again!

Even though he's very adept at fighting back, Cole does not fight back.

He takes the blows, because he wants to expose

Harwin and Rhaenyra for what they are.

Thought as much.

Ryan and Fabien fight really well. They're skilled and they listen.

So that's the key to it, you know?

There's no arrogance there. They're really easy to work with and really easy to deal with.

I remember when I first got cast I was sort of like, you know,

I said to my agent, I was like, you know,

"The stunt stuff, I want to do myself.

The sword stuff, let me do it. Like, I'm happy to do it."

I regretted that two weeks in after, like, a couple of hours boxing training with Rowley.

Heaving over in the corner, trying to catch my breath,

or, like, on take 50 of trying to swing a punch.

It's, um... It's a lot harder than it looks.

But ultimately, it's like a dance, it's like choreography.

And then doing that dance a number of times once you get there on set.

We are generally working with actors

that have not had four or five seasons of experience on previous seasons.

These guys are all kind of fresh out of the box, especially the children.

So you're teaching them from scratch.

Ryan was helping me get into that moment.

After seeing it, it was really cool.

It was great working with the kids. They're just happy to be there.

Is there anything greater?

You're getting paid money to go skip school and learn to fight with swords.

Say something-- Say something rememberable.

When children are involved, it's always--

It's a totally different situation from when we're dealing with adults.

Every attempt in every situation is done to make everything safe, whether it's adults or children.

There's always that sort of pang of uncontro

when you're handing a rubber weapon to a child.

We've done our fight scene.

And we rehearsed that for months and months leading up to it.

And it went really well. It was great.

We've been working with Rowley and the whole stunt team.

And so, we've been like training and stuff, and learning.

And we've also done rehearsals, so I'm pretty...

I'm pretty set, I think.

Hopefully, I should get it right on the day.

All these scenes are like so cool.

As an actor, you know, you don't get many shows where

you get to be with a dragon or, like, fight with swords.

So it's gonna be awesome.

Those stunts are so well choreographed by the stunt team and Rowley.

And they are amazing.

I mean, they showed us multiple times that day, and before.

And just seeing them do it, I was inspired to be as good as I can, being in that scene.

Yeah, I mean, it's what you dream about, really, as a kid.

I mean, I remember being the age of like five to six and younger,

dreaming about being that sword fighter and that hero or villain.

You know, fighting against my mates, all my boys.

We're doing-- We're doing something--

- You broke-- - You broke our shot!

Fabien, you ruined the shot!

- Sorry, sorry, sorry. - What are you doing?

Larys found an opportunity where it would be quite good

to maybe get rid of some members of his family.

And he can't do it himself, so he finds desperate people who have nothing to lose.

So he goes into the dungeons where he works, and he finds three prisoners.

And he gives them the option that,

"You can either stay here and die,

or you can come work for me and do some dirty work."

I'm prepared to offer you mercy,

if you're prepared to pay a little price.

Originally written as the whole of Harrenhal burns,

reduced to a set which was not fire retardant.

So we couldn't actually burn anything in it.

And yet, somehow, it worked.

So we were looking for some way in which we could bring this all together.

What if they're just both on the other side of a door,

and all we make is the door and the back wall?

And we ended up with the scene like that.

Harwin!

We're bringing up the fire effects,

so we see a little bit of fire and flame.

So we just used a couple of flame bars, a bit of smoke machine.

I did some additional lighting to push some of the warmer light

through the cracks of the doors, so you--

Suggesting a bit of fire.

So we never actually see anyone burn.

And we just did some very simple flame

in the foreground of the camera, the foreground of the shot.

Gavin was given at least six proper wrought iron rods to bang the door with.

And he literally bent every single one, which was quite impressive.

They gave me a rubber fire poker,

and I'm hitting this door, and it just--

It just looked like a wobbly fire poke.

So they gave me a metal one.

And, you know, because you're "in the moment,"

I was smashing the absolute s-h-i-t out of this door.

And I bent this proper metal poker in half, screaming at my son.

And I lost my voice.

Harwin!

- Cut! - Cut.

I've broken the prop. I can't speak.

This is a nightmare.

So, we did quite a few takes of that,

which, of course, Miguel likes to keep pushing you to the limit.

And he kinda did that day.

- Um, Ryan? - Yes?

The actor has disabled the door.

Very sad ending for both of them, but it'll make Larys a wonderfully-hated villain.

And me and Gav both joke about, you know, if they need a Ghost of Harrenhal

or someone else under a mask, we can always come back for that later.

Originally, we weren't sure which episode Harwin and Lyonel were going to die in.

It was maybe going to be seven. We weren't sure where to put it.

And we had two deaths by fire,

which felt like it was either going to be too many deaths,

or you just put them together and make it a thematic, side-by-side thing,

which ended up being the best way to go.

Well, Laena made it very clear to us, I think,

earlier in the story, that she doesn't...

she doesn't want to go out the prescribed way.

She's a dragon rider. She rides the most fearsome dragon on Earth.

And she wants to... she wants to die a dragon rider's death. I don't think she means tonight.

But, you know, in Game of Thrones, you never know when...

when the stranger's gonna come knocking.

I've reached the limit of my art.

So, I feel like the last scene with Laena,

when she decides to die by a dragon,

is actually the scene where we see that she

takes control of her life the first time.

That's kind of the scene, like, "This is-- I am gonna decide how I will die.

I'm not gonna die by some blade of some contentious surgeon.

I'm gonna die by my dragon, 'cause I'm a dragon rider."

It's like her going out with a bang.

It's funny, you know, 'cause people always say,

"Oh, that must have been a really heavy scene to direct."

And I always think to myself, "Oh, this is gonna be a really heavy scene to direct."

But generally speaking, one of the things that lots of actors are incredibly good at doing,

is when they're doing emotionally wrought.

Especially kind of distressing or disturbing scenes,

they find a sense of humor and levity that gets them through it.

And that's infectious, and it creates a very good atmosphere on set.

And this was no exception.

When Miguel was talking to me about the scene, he was like,

"So you imagine, you know, you see Vhagar.

You can imagine that truck standing there, that's like Vhagar."

And then he was like, "No, that's Vhagar's face."

She is huge.

Just to imagine like this enormous dragon in front of you was kind of hard.

And then you have this guy standing with a stick and a tennis ball.

And, like, that's Vhagar's eye.

And you're like, "Okay. Let's do this."

I'm happy with the scene, but it was tough.

It was windy. It was cold. And I was barefoot on all the stones.

And there was blood coming everywhere.

But you just do it.

In those kind of circumstances, you just go, "Okay, this is so weird, but I just have to."

Vhagar... Dracarys!

Dracarys!

It's another one of those scenes where it's a human and a dragon interacting.

And it's such an emotional scene.

I'm really hoping they're just absolutely devastated.

Dracarys...

We had a special effects rig up on top of...

a bit of scaffolding that would blast flames.

But obviously, we couldn't do that with Nanna in there.

So, she would do her performance,

then we did all of her coverage.

And then we would get her out of the way.

And then there was a representation of her body shape

out of what looked like a knight.

It was all steel.

It had a wig and it had its own costume.

It was doused in fuel, and then the special effects boys

took great pleasure in blasting it with a flamethrower.

SPEAKER 2: Mark... Action!

I was laughing when I saw that, when they put her on fire.

I was like, "That's me!" But, it looked--

It's gonna be-- It's gonna be interesting to see

how they've managed to put all the, you know, different parts together.

We used a tool there called Cyclops,

which is Unreal-based software that works on an iPad. So you--

You know, the Apple iPad has its own motion sensors in there, and it uses that.

You can load a scene in,

and that scene can be a dragon, if you want it to be,

and use it as a framing guide that, you know,

if you tilt up here, that's where Vhagar's head will be.

So, we tried two things.

We tried, one, actually putting an iPhone-based version of the app on the camera.

But most of the time, it actually was me.

I would, sort of, kneel down by the camera with my iPad and discuss with the cameraman,

"Look, if you point this way, you'll be seeing Vhagar here."

Angus has done a lot of prep work on those kind of scenes.

So he comes knowing the lenses that he wants to use,

and the camera angles, and the distances.

And we kind of work with him on that.

And the SFX guys have got the flamethrowers and the torches.

It was... It was, kind of a fun night, in a weird way.

We had a wonderful SFX technician.

He had made this incredible flamethrower that he was very excited about.

And we almost couldn't get the flamethrower out,

which was gonna be really sad, 'cause I would've had to report back to him,

"Sorry, didn't use flamethrower."

But instead, we did.

It was a very interesting experience,

and, surprisingly, came out quite well.

And three, two, one... Action!

I remember, I was very nervous coming and doing that rehearsal.

And I remember leaving, I was like, "This is gonna be fun."

That was a nice memory.