‘House of the Dragon’ showrunner-creator Ryan Condal and cast tell us what to expect in Season 2

"House of the Dragon" is returning for season 2 and all must choose their side of House Targaryen — Team Green or Team Black — as the realm fractures.

Westeros is on the brink of a bloody civil war with the Green or Black Councils fighting for King Aegon and Queen Rhaenyra, respectively.

Based on George R. R. Martin’s “Fire & Blood,” the upcoming HBO series is set 200 years before the events of “Game of Thrones” and tells the story of House Targaryen.

It began filming on April 11, 2023, at Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden in Watford, England and then moved to Cáceres, Spain on May 18, 2023.

We were able to interview showrunner-creator Ryan Condal as well as some of the returning cast members in a press conference in New York held at 30 Hudson Yards.

Team Green was composed of Olivia Cooke (Queen Alicent Hightower), Fabien Frankel (Ser Criston Cole), Tom Glynn-Carney (King Aegon II Targaryen), Ewan Mitchell (Prince Aemond Targaryen), Phia Saban (Queen Helaena Targaryen), and Matthew Needham (Lord Larys Strong).

Team Black was composed of Emma D’Arcy (Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen), Matt Smith (Prince Daemon Targaryen), Steve Toussaint (Lord Corlys Velaryon), Bethany Antonia (Lady Baela Targaryen), Harry Collett (Prince Jacaerys Velaryon), and Eve Best (Princess Rhaenys Targaryen). It was moderated by Mara Webster, co-founder, head of programming, In Creative Company.

Ryan Condal (Showrunner, Co-Creator)

Congratulations on the incredible scope of this show. What’s been the most valuable experience for you in coming together for a show like this?

Probably my last show, just because I did a lot of film writing early in my career. And that’s great fun, but those feature screenplays you tend to write them and then hand them over, and then they either make them or don’t make them.

But they don’t tend to involve the writer much in the production of it. The best training for making TV is making TV. And my first show was luckily enough Colony to do with Carlton Cuse. And that was essentially my television school, the making of that show, because I got dropped into it and had to keep my feet moving.

It’s a smaller scale, but essentially problems are problems. They’re either big or small but it tends to be the same making a smaller TV show and then something like this.

Season 1 constantly expanded the scope of the show and built upon itself episode by episode. With everything you’ve built to in that amazing finale, how did that set the stage for the way you’re now building Season 2?

That was the place that going back now five years, we always wanted to end the first season with. We felt like that was the proper moment that catalyzed everything else that followed.

But really, the question was how you build up to that moment and have it not only land as a moment of spectacle and shock and all that, but something truly rooted in the many years-long character dynamics that we’ve been setting up since Ranier and Alicent were children?

And we felt like if we did that and then that moment would land with the impact that I think it did, then we’d be off to the races.

And then at that point people are invested and my hope is that that’s where we are right now. And as you’ve seen, this picks up a couple of days later and off we go to the next horrible tragedy.

There were some huge losses at the end of Season 1 in terms of characters as well. How has that loss really influenced the way that you’re writing this season?

It’s a point of no return in a way. It feels like there are multiple points of no return in this show, because it’s one of these entrenched conflicts.

You have these two sides that share a lot of common history that hate each other, and the hatred only gets worse as things go on and the tragedies pile up. It felt like Vhagar killing Luke was – that’s a big sea change in the way things are going to be looked at, and then what’s the counterpunch? What’s the counter-response to that?

We just wanted to set all that stuff up so that all of the characters understand where they’re coming from and what makes them weak and strong and what they want and what they love, and then throw them into the mix and see how they respond.

There are these huge elements when you have dragons flying and a lot of stunt work but it’s also so grounded because the series show the intricacies of these characters. How do you set about creating that balance between larger-than-life but also vulnerable human emotions?

That’s the trick of the job. It’s television, ultimately, so you’re telling these big stories that are often at imitate scale. The things that I’m proudest of in the show are often two characters in a room in conflict with one another because you’re making the show's 8 episodes which amounts to probably about 9 hours of television all end to end.

You can’t fill it all with dragons fighting each other. You have to have these kinds of stage stories. The things that people engage with most are the character levels.

So that when the spectacle comes, if you’ve done your job right, you care about the characters involved with the spectacle and that’s why you take this really emotional experience out of it.

Olivia Cooke (Queen Alicent Hightower)

When we first meet Alicent, she's very naïve. But like a lot of the women in "Games of Thrones," they turn out to be more vicious than the men. Could you talk about her growth, where she understands her power and how she manipulates it? How much fun it has been portraying that?

I don’t know, it’s hard because I don’t see her as vicious. She’s got a point a lot of the time. She’s got to manipulate in order to get her point across, in order to steer these men away from chaos and implosion.

But yeah, Season 1 you definitely saw her as the naïve girl and that indoctrination from her father has like set in; and she becomes this mini-Otto Hightower in a way.

At the top of Season 2, she’s coming into her own power. She’s the most powerful she’s ever been is, her son sits on the iron throne. She’s navigating her two full-grown sons who are beginning to dismiss her more and more.

Matthew Needham (Lord Larys Strong)

Coming off of such a well-received first season, how much anxiety or fear comes from wanting to not just recreate the magic, but also find new ways to elevate the story and process?

There’s a lot of pressure. It was so well received that it is a difficult second album, isn’t it? We don’t want to disappoint anybody. Everybody in every department is working as hard as they can to make it as good as they can, because we don’t want to let anyone down. We’re really excited for you all to have a look at it.

Fabien Frankel (Ser Criston Cole)

You are portraying such richly complex characters in a very complicated story. How do you keep track of where you are when you’re working on this and presenting it to us?

Very good continuity people who tell us pretty much where we are at each point. May just think like you can always go to the monitor and you’ll find Tess there, who’s our script supervisor chewing gum and she’ll tell us exactly what’s just happened, what’s about to happen.

Because you know you shoot it completely out of order. So, it’s very useful and then just hope that you’ve not completely forgotten that you’re supposed to be out of breath, which I didn’t do in Episode 3.

Tom Glynn-Carney (King Aegon II Targaryen)

Your character was reluctant to step into a leadership role and now we’re getting to see what it looks like as he tries to find his footing. What has that journey been like for you?

It has been exciting to work it out with Aegon as he’s been working out. It was important to me to find somewhere to go with Aegon. We’d see him at the start of Season 2 with a little bit more of a spring in his step, he’s walking two inches higher than he would have usually been. He’s stepped into these kingly shoes with enthusiasm. We see a little shift in him at the end of Season 1. With a small minor hiccup with Rhaenys, but we’ll ignore that. We’re on to greener pastures.

The guy’s riddled with insecurities, vulnerabilities and everything that fractures a person. We’ll see how long he holds together.

Ewan Mitchell (Prince Aemond Targaryen)

Ewan your character has had a lot of insecurities. It seems like he’s someone who’s always struggled to kind of find his footing even within his own family. How do you feel like that’s going to influence him further in Season 2?

It’s that drive that he possesses. He was the only kid in the family who wasn’t given a dragon egg growing up. He was on the back foot and there’s this dynamic that as the person grows, so does the hatchling and they’re very many extensions of each other. Aemond was different and he didn’t get an egg and he was bullied for being different. You’ve got the oldest, baddest, hardened dragon in the known world in Vhagar. She’s so enormous she can’t fit within the confines of any castle wall and that’s similar to Aemond. He can’t fit in anywhere either. And so, they’re able to identify with each other.

That idea of standing in the face of adversity, a 10-year-old claiming this behemoth, is a tremendous feat of courage. And this drive is very evident in that and going into Season 2 you’re going to see that drive continue and it’s going to be scary.

Emma D’Arcy (Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen)

What has it been like playing full seasons of your character, and did watching your character’s younger version help you in any way for Season 2?

Yeah. I feel so shy. I think we were just doing something else and then I wasn’t expecting to walk into like an auditorium of people. It’s just why I hope that this – I would never have to pick up this microphone. But anyway. Yeah, it’s been really nice, actually, coming back to the show. I like to be quite a conscientious worker, so understanding the job description better really suits my conscience.

We’re very lucky, a lot of the work of an actor is to fill in the unseen time. That’s like a lot of labor, the labor of love is to fill in the unseen time. In this case, I can just watch it on my telly. It’s lovely, very unusual to have a character grounding that you can literally watch and return to.

I’ve said this before, but I had never I suppose shared the character with another actor, with a different age before. I’d never done that time share. But it does a lovely job of physicalizing and externalizing the split self. When I think of myself as a younger person, I definitely perceive myself from the outside. As though they were now a person, I could have a conversation with, advise or something.

I just thought that that sort of structurally, that was beautifully imagined here. Where you can see the younger self from the outside and see the division in time, division of maturity or something.

Emma, I feel like you channel power in such an interesting way because it’s quite a steely interior disposition. You’re playing a character who doesn’t come in as the loudest person in the room, and yet wields such great power over everyone. How did you set about creating that?

I don’t know. I suppose I was interested in a character who never expected to find herself in this position. She doesn’t start series one, expecting to be heir. And so – and she has a personality that is built by – in some way marginal, like still in this deeply privileged royal family. But she gets quite a lot of freedom because she’s not expected to take on responsibility. She’s not expected to be a ruling person.

I was interested in the total dissolution of self that comes with being told suddenly that actually it’s you. And suddenly being centered when you had – all of your tenacity, your humor comes from being decentered. I wanted to see what it was like just to watch a person try to put on power and also, witness how that’s then received by people around her, to varying degrees of success.

Like I was imagining, especially in Season 1, like what it would be like to take on like an incredibly high – walk into an incredibly high-powered job having never done – I wanted to bring imposter syndrome into fantasy, I suppose. Because presumably that would be honest and then I suppose by series 2 that trepidation has become quite fatigued. She is tired of the softer approach, that endless double thinking, a desire to do something and having to choose a path of manipulation or careful persuasion, so that you don’t watch people’s prejudice get weaponized against you. That’s starting to run thin by series 2.

Steve Toussaint (Lord Corlys Velaryon)

Without getting into specifics, unlike Game of Thrones this is a book that's not ongoing. So, you could find out how your characters’ journeys may end. Have you taken a peek at that or is it more helpful to you as performers to not look ahead at that?

I chose not to. We were given the book. I chose not to look at the book at all not because of spoilers, but simply because they are two different mediums. What happens is you read the book and you go oh my god, my character does this, it’s fantastic. And then Ryan goes, no, he’s not gonna do that. And you go, but in the book – so I didn’t want to fall in love with what was on the page.

Every so often fans will tell me and I’m like well, that doesn’t guarantee anything. Because he’s devious. We might not always stick to the book. For me I felt it better to just play what was in the script rather than what I would have read anywhere else.

Matt Smith (Prince Daemon Targaryen)

How has the loss of his brother influenced Daemon in Season 2?

Quite, he lost everything. Emma mentioned in this meeting we had earlier that grief is the great catalyst of the season in many ways. Everything is about the death of his brother. Every single action is often related to him. It allows this to see a version of Daemon which is slightly more exposed and honest, and he just misses him. He doesn’t even know how to communicate that. It’s quite simple really. So, he’s like a fucking crazy person, which is great. I miss Paddy (Considine) as well. So, it’s life and art imitating itself.

Matt, Ryan was talking earlier about the difference in Season 2, not having the time jumps. How has that made it a different approach for your performance with your character?

I suppose there’s a more condensed period that you see – but I mean you see a lot happen to Daemon in quite a shorter period of time. But it’s just like a more condensed whirlwind. It’s still a vortex of chaos, vengeance, madness and weird signs all coupled together. Just squashed into a tiny two-week ball of madness with Simon Russell Beale. He plays to Ser Simon Strong who is amazing, by the way. It was good. It allowed for a good deal of unraveling.

Harry Collett (Prince Jacaerys Velaryon)

When you got the scripts for Season 2, what were some of the things you were excited to explore or discover about your character on a very emotional internal level?

I was excited about having that mother/son moment with Rhaenyra. Because we don’t really get to see the two have any moments like that in Season 1. To watch them connect on the script and then finally on screen, it was just really nice because it’s just very real and they’ve both been caught up in various things. When they finally leap into each other’s arms, I just thought that was a really beautiful moment. I don’t think I will say anything else about that.

Eve Best (Princess Rhaenys Targaryen)

Can you talk about what is that like riding your dragon?

I was never off my dragon. It’s just exactly like riding a dragon in real life. It’s desperately uncomfortable in armor and I kept shouting, bring me more cushions, bring me more padding. I need more padding. You’re just so uncomfortable and you’re in this position with your legs up under your feet. You’re wearing this tin can and they were rocking you – at one point I was like this (stands up and demonstrates to the audience).

And they finished the scene, the director tells you cut. And I’m still like this. And I’m wondering, is anyone gonna let me down? Let me down, please. It was horrendous – no, it wasn’t horrendous, it was amazing. I loved every second of it. Can’t wait to do more. I felt rather proud of myself that I came off it alive.

Bethany Antonia (Lady Baela Targaryen)

You got to ride a dragon this season too.

Yeah, I did. The bit that I found the most exciting was that you get to see what they’ve animated already before you get on the dragon. So, you get to see what it’s gonna look like, obviously, like the cartoon version of yours. Then you get on and it’s like a buckin’ bronco. It’s so cool. What made me laugh was that it always comes down to a guy with a wind machine. Like no matter how much budget you have, how much CGI, there’s always gonna be a guy with a wind machine and you’re gonna be upside down. It was just the most fun. But I loved the days on the buck. Yeah.

To Bethany and Steve: 'Games of Thrones' has a huge Black fanbase, hence, But in the original House of Thrones the Black characters were more like Black background dancers. And in this, you get to be royalty; you get to be in the thick of things. Talk about why that is important.

Bethany Antonia: It was so important to me to be in a franchise of this scale, because I didn’t get to see that when I was younger. And not that only young people watch these kind of shows, not at all, but when you’re that age, that’s when you start to develop what your dreams are gonna to be and what your aspirations are gonna be. And if you don’t see it, you can’t believe it. And I really wanted to be in something like this, so that there were people who had somebody to dress up like.

And I know that might sound really basic, but those are the things that you get to enjoy when you’re in these kinds of fandoms. And it’s one like privilege that we just didn’t have. We didn’t have anybody to dress up like. We didn’t – and it’s like a bit of joy that you get to do when you go to these conventions and things. And so even if just for that, if one person gets to see it and go wow, that’s somebody who is like me, it was worth it.

Steve Toussaint: Absolutely, I would second that. I think people, if you’re used to being represented, representation doesn’t mean as much because you’re used to it. When I was a kid in the dark ages and there would be science fiction programs and there were very few, if any, people who looked like me, looked like us, me and my friends used to joke about it. This is set in the future and we’re not there. What are they gonna do to us?

But I can’t tell you the amount of people who have contacted me – and not just people of color – who have contacted me through social media or through letters and said how pleased they are to see this representation in this world. Because exactly what Bethany said, it is important for you to feel like you are something, that you are part of it, that you have a contribution to make.

And so, I think it’s vital and certainly I think some of you may be aware that there was some negative response when I was first announced, I have since then had people sort of go, yeah, I was a bit dubious about you, but actually you did a great job and well done. But I think we are living in a world in which everybody is here. And I think everybody has a right to be represented, people of different races, people of different genders, people of gender identity and so forth. That is the world we should be striving for.

There are voices out there that would argue against that. But I think those of us who want to see that world, I think history is on our side.

“House of the Dragon” Season 2 debuts Monday, June 17 on HBO and HBO GO in the Philippines and Asia. New episode drops every Monday for Asia/Philippines and every Sunday for the U.S.

— LA, GMA Integrated News