The House That Dragons Built

There is tons of action this season.

And after all of the preparation and training,

you really can't help but escape into that world.

It's exciting to get out onto location

because you've just got the wind...

...the sea,

and all the elements of our world.

And landscape brings a poetry to the show, I think.

Wales is the perfect location

for a show like this.

Its, like, landscapes are dramatic.

And the weather of Wales

really contributes to the whole ambiance.

- -All the elements.

Wales provides scope and location,

the way that we cannot get anywhere.

It's gorgeous

and it feels very kind of "Westeros."

House of the Dragon sort of environment, which is awesome.

-Yeah, let's do it. -Yeah!

-Let's do it. -Let's do it!

Do it!

The aftermath of the Battle of the Gullet

was probably one of our most challenging pieces to do.

When you see this and the breadth of it,

this shows the cost of something like the Gullet.

We had to use a mixture

of some real bodies

and then some prosthetic bodies.

With the real bodies, obviously,

some of those characters had to have big wounds on

'cause they'd been through a battle.

It's so creepy.

You know it's fake,

but then the detail is so well done.

It was very surreal.

The great thing about our dummies

was that all the heads are quite easily interchangeable.

So, I think we made 44 heads in total.

Otherwise, we're gonna see the same 20 heads over again.

Prosthetic has a thing about creating

prosthetic of crew members', uh, faces.

So, that's-- that's always a fun thing to watch.

Everybody wants to be a dead dummy.

I think we actually had more volunteers

than we had needs for bodies.

Pop them in the front.

And...

Give us a picture like you've kind of got death

rushing up to meet you.

That was good. I think you did a good job holding that.

Thank you. Kind of look constipated.

So the next stage is to make a printable head.

Here we have a box-fresh Dan Storey head.

We then mold that, pull a silicone version out.

We'll go through hair, go through paint,

have some eyes put in.

Then the beard has to be punched in by hand,

individually, with a needle.

-We'll give you a cool look. -

We're gonna be hunting for me on the set, you realize.

Dan the "behind-the-scenes guy"

is definitely in the wide shot.

When you misbehave on House of the Dragon,

you never know when you might end up just a bloated body

floating in the wreckage of the Gullet.

Baela flying back with Jace's body

is incredibly sad.

We had to work out how to put Jace's body over the dragon.

The buck isn't designed for two people,

but thankfully, in our sequence, one of them's dead.

So, we didn't have to--

We didn't have to have them moving around too much.

Um, Emma said I look like Edward Scissorhands.

Harry, you know, was brilliant.

Um, you know,

lying there in an incredibly uncomfortable position.

That feels great. Comfortable.

Are you okay just to fall back,

-dead body on there? -Yeah.

Just mind your head on the side seat.

Yeah, I'm all good. It's already what I've been doing.

I think one of the most challenging things as an actor

is to play dead.

It's long old days.

And by the end of the day,

if you lay down with your eyes closed

and don't move a muscle for ten minutes,

you will fall asleep.

So, I've got my eyes closed.

Obviously, you can't open them.

And I'm trying not to fall asleep,

but obviously you can't.

And I think one of the rehearsals,

I actually woke myself up snoring,

and they were actually shooting.

And I went... like that,

because I obviously tried to wake myself up.

But how can you wake yourself up if your eyes are closed?

Do you know what I mean? So, it was--

Yeah, it was quite challenging.

Clare showed me some images quite early on

about how pale and sort of vulnerable

she wanted to see Jace at the end moments.

So, we worked on, you know, paling up his skin

and painting in some veins.

Got a lot of dialogue. Can you please leave me alone?

Oh, I could wax lyrical about Harry all day.

Uh, I love him.

-Hello. -How are you?

I haven't earned this at all, but I feel deeply proud

of the young man that he's becoming.

-You look well. -

Jace has gone on a massive journey,

but then so have I as a person, I think.

So, I feel like we've kind of grew up together, in a way.

It was very affecting for me.

You know, we cast Harry when he was--

He was, I mean, a young man.

I want to say he was 16 when we cast him.

But to see him mature as a man and as a performer,

it's just a-- you don't get that all the time.

It's just so sad.

You know, we've done every single part

of this journey together,

so it sort of doesn't feel real

that he's not gonna be back or that he's gone.

But we had such a good time.

He's the best boy.

I will miss his kindness and generosity

and sensitivity on set.

We all say often we do not deserve him.

These memories and the people that I've met

on this show is-- is amazing.

I'm just grateful, really.

-Such a juvenile. - Sorry.

-I'll be professional. -Come on.

- Thanks, guys, appreciate it. -

Uh, Second Season, they used to be...

Fake one? Oh, it's a real one.

Back for more.

- -

It's like we never left, darling.

Filming the rookery is-- It was great.

We basically shot it in the studio on the lot.

We had two rookeries.

One that you can see it from the outside.

The other you can see the in-- from the inside.

-The one from the inside... -It was like a wooden box.

And myself and Matthew sat inside it with,

you know, 30-odd screaming ravens.

It was built well enough

so that you could take the back off

where the ravens were,

and then shoot through the birds onto our heroes,

whilst all the time

they're being pushed and pulled

and rocked about.

It's basically people pushing it and moving it

so you can feel the movement from inside.

Then me saying, "More, more, less, less,

50% more, 30% less."

Okay, a bit more, please, guys.

A lot of guys are rattling the thing around,

so we're like, oh, my God.

Bouncing around as if we're going down a bumpy road.

That was a really cool kinda going back to basics.

And how do we move this? Well, we just move it, right?

On this show, you can go from a day

of seeing two ships crash into each other in a wet tank,

and then you go onto another stage

and there's a-- a grip

rocking a half of a horse cart with his foot.

And look, it all results in the same credible,

believable film at the end of it.

And that's just-- that's filmmaking for you.

We were all laughing so much that day,

with, you know, all those birds flapping about

in this tiny little space.

[wings fluttering, birds squawking]

The crows are, um,

are horrible, um, but, you know,

we're-- we're still in touch. We text.

- -What is it?