You may have already started watching House of the Dragon Season 2, or are planning on it. We can already say that things are looking bleak for all the betraying royals involved, and of course, problematic sexual encounters are still a recurring issue. But it seems we won’t be seeing some of the messy scenes that were filmed.
The main cast of the first Game of Thrones spinoff has been giving interviews and a major promotional event for weeks, and Olivia Cooke’s in-depth chat with Elle magazine is probably one of the most informative articles you can read on the subject right now.
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While the entire interview does not revolve around the Game of Thrones prequel, it is understandable that it shapes much of the content. Regarding the pressure of filming the first Game of Thrones spinoff, Cook said: “It’s very stressful. [in] We’re doing a new spinoff in the Game of Thrones universe and we really hope it’s well received because we’ve worked so hard on it.” After the backlash to the final season of the mainline series in 2019, anyone would be nervous about going into such an important series and playing with its past.
Understandably, she’s also nervous about the level of attention any big-name actor associated with Westeros would attract: “I’m worried there’ll be a lot of eyes on me, but it’s actually fine. When the show comes on, it goes up and then it tapers off again.” Despite her positive experience so far, she also explained that she’s not a fan of all the House of Dragons-related memes out there.
As for the hard work of season two, she said that now that she and her co-stars are no longer rookies, the filming process for season two has been much smoother. It seems that a wild sex scene that was close to the most high-profile Game of Thrones was cut because the creative staff felt that it did not contribute to the plot or the characters. “I think Ryan [Condal, the showrunner] I kind of disagree with him saying we can’t get to know the characters any better, but that’s OK. It’s his show.” According to Cook, the intimate scenes with Alison Hightower, of which we’ve seen a few in the first episode of Season 2, feel “like we’re telling the story.”
Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon have been criticized in the past for their handling of certain sex scenes and darker moments involving women, but there has also been a fair amount of positivity (often from the actors themselves) surrounding the discussion of these scenes and their contribution to the story and each character’s individual arc. As the show matures and digs deeper into its messy and ambitious roster of characters, it’s been interesting to hear directly from the people involved in how the “delicater” scenes were handled.
