Long May Emma D’Arcy Reign

Spoilers below.

As luck would have it, the head of the fiery House Targaryen is in the midst of a rare heatwave in London. Local forecasts predict temperatures of 90 degrees Fahrenheit (34 degrees Celsius), but House of the Dragon star Emma D’Arcy seems cool indoors at home, sharing their excitement over the World Cup. Instead of Rhaenyra Targaryen’s signature platinum braids, D’Arcy wears their natural brunette hair in a ’90s-esque crop. A charcoal gray tee and a stack of silver chains take the place of royal threads and armor. On a recent afternoon in June, D’Arcy is seated in front of their computer, a glass door revealing greenery dappled in sunlight behind them. But in tonight’s episode, House of the Dragon fans saw D’Arcy seated elsewhere: on the Iron Throne, at last.

After years of being denied the crown and scheming to get it back, Rhaenyra Targaryen is finally where she is meant to be. She and her husband (and uncle) Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) fly into the royal castle of King’s Landing upon hearing that the fearsome dragon guarding it, Vhagar, has fled. They beeline for the throne room, Daemon slaying anyone in their path, so Rhaenyra can take her rightful seat on the throne welded from the swords of her ancestors.

But this brief triumph came at a cost. Rhaenyra is freshly grieving her eldest son Jacaerys, a.k.a. “Jace” (Harry Collett), who perished in battle in the season 3 premiere while fighting for his mother’s cause. She had already lost her younger son, Luke, and suffered a stillbirth earlier in the show; not to mention that both of her parents are deceased and her childhood best friend, Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), played a part in denying her the crown.

“I think there’s a nice surprise in Rhaenyra’s character arc more broadly where, having been so scared of motherhood because of her own mother’s fate, she actually discovers for herself that there’s this amazing community that gets created,” D’Arcy says. “I think for me, that’s really typified in her relationship with Jace. Hence, his loss being so incomprehensible.”

Rhaenyra’s last test before ascending the throne is that she must kill her usurper, her nephew Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney). But because the injured king has fled King’s Landing, she must take someone in his place. She’s given Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans)—Aegon’s grandfather, Alicent’s father, and Rhaenyra’s late father’s best friend. Trying not to wince, she beheads the man who was like an uncle to her (it only takes two tries) and slowly climbs the steps to the Iron Throne. She’s barely settled in when Alicent arrives—only to find her father’s head on the palace floor. She knows it was Rhaenyra who killed him.

D’Arcy’s performance in this episode is stunning, not just in the big, dramatic outbursts but also in each subtle movement that embodies Rhaenyra’s inner conflict. The actor humbly says of filming the episode, “Even though the demand is big and, definitely, fatigue is a problem that has to be managed over the course of a shoot like that, I think they probably knew that I would be up for it.” That’s likely thanks to their theater background, having appeared in stage productions like The Crucible and Mrs. Dalloway before HOTD. Most recently, D’Arcy starred in The Other Place, a modern retelling of Antigone, at London’s National Theatre.

The two-time Golden Globe nominee only has one season left as Rhaenyra Targaryen, as showrunner Ryan Condal announced the Game of Thrones prequel will end with its forthcoming fourth season, which has yet to be filmed. D’Arcy isn’t sure how they’ll handle saying goodbye to the show, but they do know how the story will end: The series will stay true to the narrative laid out in George R. R. Martin’s source material, Fire & Blood. But the journey to get there remains a surprise. “There is so much room left for the how, and that’s what I’ll be curious to read,” D’Arcy says.

Here, the actor discusses their demanding performances in episode 2, Rhaenyra’s first kill, and what’s next for her and Alicent.

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The episode starts on a very somber note. As Jace’s body is carried in, I feel like everyone in the scene—and everyone watching at home—braces themselves to see how Rhaenyra will react. And her first line is: “What have you done?” It’s as if she’s truly expecting her son to answer. What was your first impression of that line?

Honestly, I thought it was incredibly honest. A loss like that is impossible. I do think that the first instinct of the body is denial.

The thing that felt really important in that line was making sure it didn’t become rhetorical; that was my hope. You want to leave air for him to answer and that, to me, is deeply tragic but also very honest. There is a huge capacity for the body and the mind to encourage the possibility of other realities, even when the shared reality is incredibly evident, even when all the evidence is to the contrary.

Her reaction grows from denial into a full-blown breakdown. We see it all unravel on screen in real time. How did you handle that performance?

To be totally honest, it was the only scene in the series that I dreaded. And I don’t normally dread stuff. But [it was] because it’s so evident how annihilating that news will be, and because there’s a funny thing that happens in our job where life does end up imitating art insofar as, if a character dies on a show, you lose the actor from the company. And I love Harry. He’s the most extraordinary, kind, empathetic young man, and he is adored on the show, and he’s also a person that I’ve watched grow up. When he was first on the show, he was there with his dad as a chaperone, and now he’s an adult actor doing it on his own. The combination of having a sense of the scale of Rhaenyra’s grief and the symbolic loss…I didn’t look forward to that day.

The other side, though, is: A great privilege and a joy that I found in playing a recurring character, which I hadn’t done before, is that you have so much material and history available to you and lived history in your own body. So, when it comes to a scene like that, you can trust the operating system you’ve built. I have found it was easier to trust the outcome, to essentially allow her to do what she will do. But I was relieved when the shooting day was over.

Did it require a lot of takes?

It’s quite a complicated scene spatially, because there’s a lot of different people in the room and Rhaenyra moves [around]. As a result of that, just pragmatically, we did a fair amount [of takes]. But Clare Kilner is an extremely brilliant and attentive director and so I do know that she was trying to minimize that where possible. It was also a strange day for Harry.

Was that actually him lying there?

It’s him. Both the costume and the makeup department did such a haunting job, actually, in making him up, but he was so beautiful. We didn’t see each other in the morning, and he gave me a very, very wide berth [before] we started shooting. And then at lunchtime we passed each other and he said, “Oh, I wasn’t sure what would be best, but I thought maybe I’d just give you some space today. But if that’s not helpful, you let me know.” I always find the intuition of actors very moving. And he was perfect.

There’s so much that happens in this episode with Rhaenyra, especially with what I’ll call the “mini conquest” of King’s Landing. The fact that she and Daemon went down there at all after hearing that Vhagar had left—that was a risky move. Why do you think Rhaenyra decided to trust Alicent at all?

I actually think there are several parts to it. One is that grief can afford you a nihilism that actually gives you quite a lot of breadth in the face of danger. I’m not sure that, at the point of departing from Dragonstone, Rhaenyra has any concern for her own safety.

I also think that, as so often happens in this show, the personal and the political are so tightly knit, and there’s something about preserving Jace’s memory or making sure that his death has some meaning. I don’t think it’s as conscious as that but, even knowing that if Rhaenyra is successful and she takes the throne, then her name goes down in the history books and so does that of her son. There’s a legacy aspect to her plight that indirectly also is a way of preserving her son.

I read that you had been wanting to hold a sword for a long time on this show, and you finally do this episode. How did it feel to have it be part of your wardrobe but then to be able to wield it? Did you have to work with any movement coaches when it came to swinging it around?

Obviously, a part of me is delighted that it’s happened for me and I finally got some hardware. The complication is that what Rhaenyra receives is Jace’s sword, and that’s very different to receiving a weapon of her own. It becomes a very moving totem during the episode because, I think, when we lose people, objects do become incredibly important. It serves as a manifestation of him in episode 2.

Something that we wanted to preserve, actually, was Rhaenyra’s broad lack of experience. We didn’t want her to suddenly become a…

Like Brienne of Tarth.

Yeah. We wanted that sword to remain a foreign object, so that when she does draw it in the face of danger, it’s very unclear if she actually has the ability to use it effectively at all, which feels honest. It speaks to the very different access point she has been afforded as a woman growing up in the royal household.

When it comes time to behead Otto Hightower, she has a lot of nerves and hesitation. But she also wants to prove herself, despite her inexperience with the sword. And Otto is saying, “I don’t want to be hacked at.” What was that scene like for you to film?

I love the positioning that the writers come up with because, on the one hand, Rhaenyra is expecting to execute Aegon and preparing herself—I think it’s fair to say—to take a life by her own hand for the first time.

I was wondering that, too.

As far as I’m concerned, that’s true. I don’t think we have any evidence to the contrary. That already is a frightening prospect but, you’re right, there is a demand as a requirement. In a way it’s political theater. But what she gets instead is her dad’s best friend, someone who watched her grow up, who knew her as a girl, and I think it’s the worst-case scenario. It completes the regression to childhood that happens when we return to the family home.

The gaze of someone who probably still perceives her as a child does a lot to rob her of her power. So, I wanted to see her fear, I wanted to see her defiance, but most of all, I wanted to trouble the journey to the throne as much as possible so that by the time she gets there, she’s robbed of her triumph and is regressed to childhood.

The way you walk up to the throne was also really moving, just in your body language. What did you want to convey in that moment?

I guess there’s something about that final ascent describing the whole journey to this moment, i.e., years of interpersonal complication, of fighting for her own legitimacy, of navigating untrustworthy actors. I suppose I wanted her to have to carry years of difficulty up the stairs.

When she finally sits down on the throne, it’s almost everything that she ever wanted and then, immediately, Alicent walks in.

I have this thought that…Alicent is Rhaenyra’s judge and jury. No matter how polarized their relationship becomes, still it’s Alicent’s sign-off that Rhaenyra craves more than anyone’s, and that dynamic is established in that final exchange.

They don’t say anything at all, but their looks say so much. Is that how you interpreted it—as Alicent’s judgment? What are they saying to each other there?

I won’t weigh in on that because it’s nice to leave that interpretive space, but I do think that it’s a complication of having a very, very long plotted history with another person.

As you mentioned, as a woman in the royal household, Rhaenyra has always chafed against the double standards of gender that have been imposed on her. In this episode, you see that a lot, especially when Daemon is like, “Well, you have to chop Otto’s head off because that’s how you prove that you’re the leader.” You have to show some machismo brutality to be able to prove that you’re the rightful heir to the throne.

How do you think Rhaenyra is handling those expectations of how to lead, which is a very masculine way of leading? This show as a whole has been in conversation with that fact, especially with two female monarchs at the forefront.

It’s a constant tension in the show. We’ve seen Rhaenyra, for at least a season now, trying to carve out what a ruling queen might look like and trying to find mechanisms that allow her, as a ruling queen, to be taken seriously. At the end of [season 3], episode 1, actually, the learning is that it’s not possible; that a more masculine approach is the only thing that will be respected. When she cuts up her dress, I think she’s killing the perpetual obstacle, which is this perception as a woman, and she does move—just in terms of clothing—into a more masculine presentation going forward.

That said, there are different visions in the show of her premiership, and Mysaria in particular typifies a different approach. Rhaenyra in season 2 is a ruler who looks to share her sameness with her subjects, a ruler who is looking to, to some extent, disassemble the feudal hierarchy and instead say, “I’m of the people and your concerns are my concerns.” I think some of what Rhaenyra will go on to do in the series will be reflective of that position.

On the other hand, and maybe this is a view held broadly by Daemon, there is a type of premiership on offer that is of the authoritarian, the demigod; and I do think there’s a pull there, too. Daemon increasingly feels like Rhaenyra’s ego in the show manifested externally, and you have Mysaria, who feels like the physical embodiment of Rhaenyra’s conscience. As the series progresses, those two forces are in constant tension.

How would you say her killing Otto and Alicent’s knowledge of that affects Rhaenyra’s journey going forward?

What Rhaenyra discovers very, very quickly is the complexity of being in office. I think the show attempts to weigh the pressures that come with that as honestly and vividly as possible. The show strives not to oversimplify what it means to rule and the various bodies and factions that crave both an ear and satisfaction. That’s the obstacle course that is set out for Rhaenyra in [season] 3.

I’m curious, did you look to any other monarchs or historical figures throughout history as references when you were first building the character?

I didn’t, apart from having read a fair amount of historical fiction, in which case, I guess there’s lots of reference points to draw from. But there is a nice Easter egg in [season 3], episode 1. Rhaenyra says, “I may appear to have the weak and feeble body of a woman, but I possess the heart and spirit of a king.” That is an almost-direct quote from Elizabeth I that has been very beautifully positioned. She actually said, “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king.” There’s something very exciting but also resonant about how the writers have reincorporated that quote.

We know that House of the Dragon will end with season 4. Are you ready for life after Rhaenyra and what that might look like?

Not massively keen to think about it just yet, but I have daydreams where it suddenly becomes very evident that it will be over and a load of quite sad, shocked feelings come with that—but I immediately bury the thought.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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Styling by Rose Forde, makeup by Phoebe Walters, and hair by Josh Knight.