Rhaenyra and Laenor’s wedding dance was inspired by “prehistoric birds” in House of the Dragon

The royal wedding of Laenor Velaryon and Rhaenyra Targaryen was featured in the fifth episode of the Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon; it was an apparently happy event that ended tragically. In order to keep the peace in the realm, several compromises were made. However, there was an unsaid tension just waiting to burst beneath those concessions. Although it was less terrible than The Red Wedding, it was just as crazy, and one important character died.

Rhaenyra and Laenor’s wedding was filmed over 10 days

Director Clare Kilner recently talked with The Hollywood Reporter about the best scenes she had filmed on the show so far, “Episode nine, when [Eve Best’s Rhaenys spectacularly interrupts a royal coronation on her dragon]. That was obviously a huge sequence, and I vividly remember grabbing the mic and screaming to all the supporting artists and actors, “The dragon is coming!” to whoop everyone up. Also, the wedding [between Milly Alcock’s Princess Rhaenyra and Theo Nate’s Laenor] took 10 days to shoot.”

The wedding dance was taken from prehistoric birds

Kilner reminisced about filming the dance sequence, “I worked with a choreographer to devise a House of the Dragon dance. There wasn’t a Game of Thrones dance that I could draw on, so we started thinking about prehistoric birds and how we could use the movements of birds to create this dance. Also, the journey of Rhaenyra and Daemon [Matt Smith] into the Flea Bottom underworld and a brothel.”

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