House of the Dragon: “Making this show is like an ultra marathon”

The first two seasons of House of the Dragon, the most popular series on IMDb globally right now, are now available to binge on Showmax. 

Filmed in England, Wales and Spain, Season 2 required more than 5 400 costumes, a crew of almost 2 500, and more than 100 new sets built across five sound stages and a backlot, over a five-and-a-half-month shoot. Overseeing this all was showrunner and co-creator Ryan Condal, who on any given day was running between two and four crews simultaneously, shooting separate episodes, with separate directors.

“Every day is essentially two days worth of film days,” says Ryan. “For example, you plan your schedule so that Emma [D’Arcy] as Rhaenyra can be shooting scenes at Dragonstone with one director and another director is shooting scenes with Olivia [Cooke] playing Alicent in the Red Keep across the lot. And that’s how we break up the schedule and ensure it doesn’t take a year and a half to film one season.”

House of the Dragon, the prequel to Game of Thrones, is based on George RR Martin’s bestseller Fire & Blood. Season 1 ended with Aegon [Tom Glynn-Carney] crowned King, to the fury of Rhaenyra, the firstborn of the late King Viserys – and his named successor.

So civil war was brewing even before the murder of Rhaenyra’s son, Lucerys, in the S1 finale, at the hands of Aegon’s brother, Prince Aemond [Ewan Mitchell]. 

“The murder of Luke at the end of S1 was a seismic event,” says Ryan. “The murder was an act of kin-slaying and treason and it’s upped the stakes because any chance of negotiating terms is now off the table given how horrific that action was.” 

Season 2 picks up with both sides bracing for the inevitable fallout. “Certainly, Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and her side are mourning and Aegon and Alicent are in defensive mode, worrying where and how the retribution is going to come – because they know it’s going to come,” says Ryan. 

“Daemon (Matt Smith) is waiting loyally to execute Rhaenyra’s orders but she has gone off to grieve and no one is quite sure where she’s gone. Daemon is frustrated: he wants to act, he wants vengeance, but he doesn’t have the Queen’s authority.”

Aegon is king now, so Allicent and Rhaenyra’s children play a much more central role this season. “This season is really all about them,” says Ryan. “Yes, it’s still Alicent and Rhaenyra and Daemon’s story, with Rhaenys and the Sea Snake, too, but it’s also passed on to that second generation of kids, who are now waging this war that was started by their parents.”

Condal says that the themes established in S1 are heightened in S2. “This season it becomes very much about how far you are willing to go to win the throne,” says Ryan. “Particularly in an environment, which was not the case in Game of Thrones, where you essentially have nuclear weapons on the table and the threat of mutually assured destruction, which is, of course, what the dragons are.”

Ryan was understandably relieved when he wrapped Season 2. “Every season is a battle,” he says. “It always feels good to finish and this one in particular feels good because Season 2 is so much bigger in scope and ambition. So even though it was eight episodes versus ten in S1, it somehow felt like a bigger accomplishment in the end. You learn an awful lot when you make S1 of a show and, if you’re lucky enough to make it to S2, you get to do it again, but better. And I think, in every objective way, Season 2 is bigger, richer and better.”

Recently named one of IMDb’s 10 Top-Rated Shows of 2024 So Far, House of the Dragon S2 has an 89% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with its jaw-dropping fourth episode the highest rated yet on IMDb, earning a 9.5/10 rating and widespread comparisons to the Red Wedding episode of Game of Thrones. 

Game of Thrones became the most awarded show in the Emmys history, with six entries in The Guinness Book of World Records, but House of the Dragon is living up to that legacy. The Emmy-winning first season was named Best TV Series – Drama at the 2023 Golden Globes and the best-reviewed series of 2022 at Rotten Tomatoes’ Golden Tomato Awards. As Seattle Times says of S2, “House of the Dragon evolves into such smart, thrilling and heartbreaking storytelling that it threatens to become the rare prequel that outshines the original.” 

After the S2 premiere helped international streaming service Max to its most-watched day yet, House of the Dragon has already been renewed for a third season. So Ryan’s not slowing down any time soon. “It’s sort of neverending – you climb one mountain and then you find another mountain to climb,” he says. “Making this show is like an ultra marathon.”

Bonus info: Dragon-to-dragon filming

Has the technology you use for the dragons developed from Season 1 to Season 2?

Ryan Condal: For sure. It’s about learning what works and what doesn’t, and what you can do better. For me, when I look at the dragon work, here in S2 it’s just better than S1. I think we have improved our ‘buck’ [the 2000kg motion base, a computerised unit that simulates the flight of a dragon, known on set as the bucking bronco], which is basically the programmable saddle that the actors sit in. Essentially the saddle is programmed to do the moves of the dragon that are laid out in storyboards for the scene and then we have a robot-armed camera that is programmed to move with it. And you get that documentary feeling that George Lucas talked about with Star Wars.

We call it ‘dragon-to-dragon’ filming: when you’re filming the dragon, you want it to feel like the camera is flying on another dragon. So we improved all of that methodology to make it more realistic and tangible. We were able to program wing flaps into the buck. So, when they’re sitting on the buck, even if the buck isn’t diving or banking or anything, the buck is undulating and moving to simulate the movement of the dragon’s body when it’s flapping its massive wings. I think the buck is now more articulated than it was in Season 1 because the special effects team was able to go in and add some more pitch and roll and to make it feel more like a real, organic animal when it moves.