‘House of the Dragon’ Casting Updates & Filming News

The upcoming Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon has dropped some exciting casting and filming news!

House of the Dragon will be set approximately 300 years before the Game of Thrones series, and we now know that Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy, and Matt Smith have all been cast in the upcoming show. They will be joining Paddy Considine who was cast as Viserys Targaryen previously.

Of the three actors named, I’m most excited about Matt Smith. He will forever be ‘My Doctor’ on Doctor Who, and I’ve greatly enjoyed other projects he’s been in since then. Smith and D’Arcy will each play Targaryens (Prince Daemon Targaryen and Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, respectively) while Cooke will play Alicent Hightower. That said, while I adore Matt Smith, my brain isn’t quite parsing him in the role of Prince Daemon quite yet. But that’s alright. I didn’t think he could do Prince Philip either and I was wrong!

Filming for the series is reported to begin in April 2021. A lot of productions have been shut down during the pandemic, but a few have managed to keep on track with enhanced safety precautions in place. However, it’s possible we’ll be headed in a more positive direction by the time April rolls around since vaccines look like they’ll be right around the corner, so perhaps production can happen without any major disruptions. The series is scheduled to air beginning one year later in April 2022.

While the original Game of Thrones series left me fairly salty, this is a mostly new crew (Miguel Sapochnik, who is my favorite director from the original, will be returning) that will be working on a series focused on my favorite Westeros house, so I’m still fairly excited. The casting news so far is good, too, so I’m heading into this with high hopes.

I hope HBO learns from the mistakes that were made at the end of the original series and keeps this one on track accordingly.

Author: Angel Wilson

Angel is the admin of The Geekiary and a geek culture commentator. They earned a BA in Film & Digital Media from UC Santa Cruz. They have contributed to various podcasts and webcasts including An Englishman in San Diego, Free to Be Radio, and Genre TV for All. They identify as queer.

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