House of the Dragon stunt coordinator reveals who’s the best with a sword among the cast

The ‘Dance of the Dragons’, the notoriously named Targaryen civil war, didn’t finish in one night. A once-powerful family was destroyed with their own hands in a manner never before seen as little disputes erupted into large-scale killings. The on-screen depiction, known as the House of the Dragon, portrays some of the best warriors from both sides, played by some of the best actors. And every one of them did their best to bring the most out of their roles.

Who was the best sword-fighter in House of the Dragon?

In a recent interview with THR, House of the Dragon Stunt coordinator Rowley Irlam revealed several secrets about the show and the cast. He revealed, “On the previous show, a lot of the cast got to be proficient because they had seasons under their belt. Some of our cast have done something [with swords] before, but not a great deal. But everyone did really well.”

“Matt Smith and Fabien Frankel did well. Ewan Mitchell [who plays Prince Aemond Targaryen] did really well — he came from a show [called] The Last Kingdom, so he’d obviously picked up a weapon. He had building blocks that we could build on. But sometimes it’s good to get people when they’re fresh and they haven’t developed any bad habits. I’m not disappointed in anything we did.”

Which stunt was the toughest to film on House of the Dragon?

He talked about the toughest scene he had filmed in season 1, “The kid night fight [when Lucerys fights with Aemond]. We had kids ranging from 9 to 13, and we couldn’t use doubles for them. The kids don’t know how to film a fight. How are we going to do this?”

“We taught them how to throw a punch, how to change it if the camera angle was different, how to fall over. We built a set and filled it with rubber clippings about four inches deep so they couldn’t hurt themselves. We went into a blackened tunnel for three days and weren’t coming out until we’d finished. It was good fun, but hard work.”

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