With the HBO fantasy series House of the Dragon in its third season, the stakes remain high for the fractured Targaryen dynasty. The period drama chronicles the family civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons, a tale of power, betrayal, and political maneuvering in Westeros. But behind the spectacle of season 3’s debut this month lies a different kind of performance challenge, one built on psychological endurance, technical precision, and the discipline to make a fictional world feel real.
At a recent press conference attended by Casting Networks, showrunner Ryan Condal and members of the ensemble cast discussed the production’s inner workings. The conversation focused on casting against type, the physical stamina required on set, and performing in a fictional language.
Key Insights
- Great casting often comes from choosing exceptional actors over predictable choices, allowing unexpected performances to redefine iconic characters.
- As actors grow with a role over multiple seasons, preparation often shifts from meticulous planning to trusting instinct and collaboration on set.
- Fantasy productions demand as much technical discipline as emotional performance, from learning constructed languages to acting against green screens and visual effects.
The Power of the “Mismatch” in Casting
Managing a massive rolling ensemble where characters can perish within a single episode or season, while new ones constantly enter the fray, can be a logistical challenge. Casting Networks asked showrunner and co-creator Ryan Condal about his workflow with House of the Dragon casting director Kate Rhodes James, who he called his “longest collaborator” on the series, aside from his writing partner, Sara Hess.
“I love Kate Rhodes James,” Condal said. “I think Kate is the first head of department I hired on the show, outside the writer’s room. Kate joined us before I even moved to England [for the series] because casting a show of the size and breadth of season 1, where sometimes you needed to cast two versions of the characters [young and old], was a long process.”
Their collaboration began when Condal was still in Los Angeles, so early that he joked he “only knew her as a two-dimensional face on Zoom for the first eight months of our relationship.” Now, with Rhodes James already signed for season 4, Condal admitted, “I don’t think I would be able to really do this job without Kate, because I’ve learned to trust her taste and instincts so much.”
This trust has created an environment where a department head like Rhodes-James is empowered to openly challenge leadership’s casting choices. Condal noted that she is always “willing to tell me when I’m wrong, and will not be shy about it, which I very much enjoy.”
He cited Rhode James’ ability to immediately “rattle off suggestions” when he pitches a character. But more than that, “she doesn’t cast to profile; she casts great actors,” Condal stated.
That means, instead of going with predictable options, Rhodes-James prefers to subvert expectations. “She loves the mismatch where you take somebody that maybe hasn’t done that [type of role] and the unexpected [move] of putting them in that role,” Condal explained.
He pointed to Paddy Considine’s performance as King Viserys as the ultimate proof of how this philosophy can elevate a series, adding that once a performer delivers on that instinct, “you couldn’t see anything different” in terms of other actors in the role.
In fact, there was no higher endorsement for that casting choice than when Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin publicly validated it in a fan Q&A video, remarking, “King Viserys Targaryen I, as portrayed by Paddy Considine on the show, is better than the way I wrote King Viserys in Fire & Blood. He’s stronger, he’s still conflicted, but he’s more of a tragic figure. He has King Lear aspects to him, if I may dare [say] that, and that’s made his portrayal really interesting to watch in the show.”
From Preparation to Instinct
For the actors, particularly those with multi-seasonal arcs, the challenge shifts to sustaining and evolving a character over several years. Performance processes do change as actors gain confidence with each passing season.
Tom Glynn-Carney, who plays King Aegon II Targaryen, discussed that living with his character through multiple seasons now makes it easier to step into their shoes on any given day. “They’re kind of extensions of us at this point,” he admitted, adding, “It’s just a deeper understanding, and you get braver with your choices the more you get to know the character.”
Ewan Mitchell, who plays Prince Aemond Targaryen, explained how that comfort changed his approach to line memorization, revealing he was far less rigid in that process for season 3.
“Season 1 and 2, I had a very calculated approach to Aemond,” he said. “I wanted to learn the lines for months in advance of shooting the scenes. For this season, I wanted to just be organic on the day and, working with my tremendous fellow cast members, see what hit spontaneously.”
The Mental Gymnastics of High Valyrian
Performing extensive dialogue in High Valyrian, the show’s fictional constructed language, required a unique technical baseline.
Matt Smith, who plays Prince Daemon Targaryen, and Emma D’Arcy, who plays Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, compared learning the dialogue sequences to preparing for a high-stakes university oral exam.
D’Arcy recalled a stretch of filming where Smith had a tight turnaround after shooting scenes on location in Wales. Seeing the sheer volume of translated text, D’Arcy sent him a text message to check on his progress.
“I had an intuition that maybe I would send a message just to say, ‘Have you looked at it?’ Because there is a lot,” D’Arcy explained. “And then I got a series of messages of voice notes from about four in the morning. In a nice way, we sort of hold each other to a high standard.”
Phoebe Campbell, who plays Lady Rhaena Targaryen, took a different approach, turning to the publicly available language app Duolingo to establish an early foundation. The platform has long been connected to the franchise: David J. Peterson, the expert linguist hired by HBO to develop the grammar and vocabulary of High Valyrian, partnered with Duolingo in 2019 to launch an official High Valyrian course. Ahead of the House of the Dragon season 1 premiere in 2022, Peterson worked with Duolingo again to add over 150 new vocabulary words, more than 700 new sentences, and specialized skills, including dragon commands.
“Love the Duolingo High Valyrian,” Campbell said, admitting that while her daily practice streak has since failed, the app helped cement her initial dialogue.
“Buck”-le Up: The Art of Dragon Riding
For those actors whose characters ride dragons, there is an additional challenge: delivering grounded, emotional performances on a buck while surrounded by green screens and visual effects machinery.
Glynn-Carney described “the buck” as a massive hydraulic crane, standing in for the dragon in the final shot, rigged with wind machines and surrounded by towering LED screens that simulate passing clouds and directional fireballs. Rather than getting swept up in the fantasy of the show, riding it is more of a lesson in focus and precision. “In terms of how you approach it, you’re just a very small part of a massive moving machine,” Glynn-Carney noted, “You sit there and do your job and be shouted at and take instructions.”
This is, in its own way, a fitting metaphor for the entire production. Whether learning a constructed language at four in the morning, trusting an instinct on an unexpected piece of casting, or strapping into a hydraulic crane and pretending to soar above a burning kingdom, the cast and creative team of House of the Dragon are united by a shared commitment to doing the work, whatever form that work takes.
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