‘House of the Dragon’s Cast Unpacks Filming Westeros’ Deadliest Sea Battle

Editor’s note: The below interview contains major spoilers for the House of the Dragon Season 3 premiere.

Originally, the devastating sequence known as the Battle of the Gullet wasn’t meant to serve as House of the Dragon‘s Season 3 premiere. Based on how the second season wraps up, with Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and Aegon’s (Tom Glynn-Carney) respective armies advancing on the stretch of sea between Dragonstone and King’s Landing, fans may have expected one more episode depicting what is arguably the bloodiest naval conflict in the so-called Dance of the Dragons — yet it never came. Showrunner and executive producer Ryan Condal later admitted that the decision to push the battle to Season 3 was made in an effort to “rebalance the season” with an ultimate destination in mind, citing a lack of “infinite time and resources” while reiterating that the series’ creative team wanted to give this highly anticipated event “the time and the space that it deserves.”

Any lingering concerns that House of the Dragon wouldn’t deliver on what Condal also described as “arguably the second most anticipated action event” of author George R.R. Martin‘s Targaryen chronicle, Fire & Blood, will likely be put to rest after tonight’s episode. Clocking in at over an hour of runtime, “Salt and Sea, Fire and Blood,” written by Condal and directed by Loni Peristere, is the culmination of two years’ worth of preparation and design efforts, as well as months of actor training, to make it appear as if everyone onscreen was actually navigating the real Gullet.

Condal has also previously revealed that the sequence was shot mostly “in camera,” relying heavily on practical effects outside the obvious moments when a dragon or two was involved — and unfortunately, when the dragons do show up this time, the devastation they leave in their wake will undoubtedly have very personal consequences for Rhaenyra’s side of the Targaryen civil war. Before the Season 3 premiere, Collider spoke with several House of the Dragon cast members about the experience of filming the Battle of the Gullet and its most devastating losses.

Sharako Lohar Pursues Her “White Whale” Corlys Velaryon — at a Deadly Cost

The Battle of the Gullet, as depicted in House of the Dragon‘s Season 3 premiere, is best broken up into two sections — what plays out in the Gullet itself, between Corlys Velaryon’s (Steve Toussaint) ships and those of the Free Cities’ Triarchy, and what transpires in the skies above. While Corlys’ prowess as a mariner overseeing a great navy has earned him both a formidable reputation and the moniker of the Sea Snake, viewers haven’t really been able to see him in his element yet, so to speak. For Toussaint, getting to portray this long-awaited aspect of his character, which included both filming on a ship and swordfighting with pirates, was an absolutely “joyous” experience. “You’re a kid on the playground, but you’ve just got these incredibly expensive toys, and that’s what it felt like. All the stuff that I did when I was a child on the playground.”

If there is one regret that Toussaint does have from filming, it’s that he didn’t have the opportunity to duplicate one of his personal favorite moments from a much-beloved epic war movie. “On Master and Commander — and I know that the actor did this, that the actor suggested this — there’s a moment when the ship’s going through the whatever, and Russell Crowe is on the bow of the ship.” Toussaint even goes as far as to mime the scene in question, letting his hand trail into an imaginary sea. “He’s sort of hanging off like that, and he puts his hand in the water.”

Toussaint’s enthusiasm is readily echoed by his co-star Abigail Thorn, who first joined House of the Dragon last season as Admiral Sharako Lohar, an unashamedly brash pirate who also commands the Triarchy’s fleet. “It was the most fun I’ve ever had,” she says, citing the “months and months of prep and training” that went into bringing the Battle of the Gullet to life. Onscreen, their dynamic is significantly less complimentary, but the truth about Lohar’s intentions doesn’t come to light until she’s already agreed to pledge her ships to Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall) and the Greens.

Once the Sea Snake’s banner is directly in her sights, Lohar informs Tyland that she’s sailed across the Narrow Sea not to help turn the tide for Aegon, but to seek revenge on Corlys for the devastation he previously inflicted on her people. Not only does she plan to direct her fleet to sack High Tide, the official seat of House Velaryon, but she’s also going to hunt down Corlys personally — even if it means throwing Tyland and other armored men overboard to make her ship light enough to close the gap. From Thorn’s perspective, Lohar’s actions aren’t a consequence of sudden tunnel vision, but the pursuit of an incredibly important mission of vengeance.

“I think it does outweigh everything else. She’s Captain Ahab in this episode. I studied every version of Moby-Dick I could get my hands on: both the original novel and also the Gregory Peck performance as Ahab, I went into it a lot,” Thorn says, before citing another character she drew further inspiration from: Ricardo Montalbán in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. “Khan has that charm and that fun on top, but then there’s the brutality and the vengeance underneath it. I think Corlys is her white whale, and she is willing to risk everything and sacrifice her own men, her relationship with Tyland, and ultimately her own life, just to get a chance to be right in close and look in his eyes when he dies.”

By the time Lohar and Corlys’ ships finally collide, anticipation for their ultimate confrontation has risen even higher, and Thorn reveals that she and director Loni Peristere had discussions about how to approach the characters’ knockdown, drag-out fight: “We called that the Captain Ahab moment, because that is kind of, ‘From hell’s heart, I stab at thee. For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath.’” One version of the scene, which wound up on the cutting room floor, saw Thorn embracing that quote more literally. “There was a take that we did that we didn’t end up using where I do, in fact, spit at Steve. I remember we did that take, and I was like, ‘Steve, would you mind if I spit at you?’ And he went, ‘You do what you got to do.’”

Both parties land several devastating hits on each other, but what takes Corlys out of the fight occurs completely by chance. One moment, he’s standing on the deck, ready to deliver the final blow, and the next, he falls into the sea as the ship runs aground, his fate ultimately left unknown by the episode’s conclusion. Yet that’s not where the fight ends, because Corlys’ right-hand sailor and secret bastard son, Alyn of Hull (Abubakar Salim), is ready to tag in where his father left off. After previously stripping off the armor that was weighing him down, Alyn launches himself at Lohar, believing her responsible for Corlys’ death, and the two tumble off the ship into waist-deep water.

According to Salim, the original version of Alyn and Lohar’s fight to the death was intended to be “flashy,” but once cameras started rolling, what was planned as a more choreographed stunt sequence was changed into something much more visceral. “On the day, as we were in this water, we’d taken into consideration everything that had happened, the sheer brutality, these people being absolutely exhausted, and it just became brutal and just horrible. Actually, that fight, I think we did it in two or three days because it was so… not necessarily simplistic in its nature, but simplistic in its intention, of just to kill or be killed.”

While the actors’ approach to the overall fight may have been more straightforward, Thorn says she found more nuance in smaller reactions that exposed Lohar’s range of emotions while the character is fighting for her life. “That sequence was such a delight for me because, on the page, it’s very simple. It’s just two sentences, like, ‘They’re fighting, and she’s killed.’ So I got to choose throughout every single moment of the fight how she feels about each moment, and I got to decide the exact moment where she realizes she’s going to die and how she feels about that.”

Despite Lohar’s fate being written, it’s unclear, at first, who’s going to triumph — but then Alyn holds her underneath the water, never allowing her to take a full breath, and then hoists her above the surface to finish the job with a literal twist of a knife he plucks right off her belt. Thorn confirms that Lohar’s death is likely her most illuminating scene, but the actor is only willing to divulge so much about the history she personally crafted for the character. “This isn’t Sharako the Storm, the fighter — I know in my head what her real name is. In the final moment, she’s just this scared little girl.”

Salim is quick to praise his scene partner for her willingness to wholly commit to the sequence that reveals so much about both Corlys’ biggest foe and his most reluctant heir. “Abigail is, again, such a trooper because she threw her all in every single take, and so it almost forced me to really throw my all into every single take. It was an interesting sequence to see how it evolved, especially taking into consideration just what these two characters have been through the whole time.”

Thorn also notes that the version of Lohar’s death that made it into the final cut of the episode speaks to some of House of the Dragon‘s most important themes, chief among them the reminder that this battle is going to be only one of many that exacts a terrible toll on the characters. “There was this amazing, lucky moment where, as he lifts me out of the water, all the blood and grime washes off her face, and… you see the woman she could have been were it not for Corlys, if he hadn’t done what he did, and I have the answer to that in my head, too. If he hadn’t done that, we see what she could have been, and it’s this beautiful moment that says so much about the whole season, actually, and the cost of war and of vengeance.”

An Unexpected Clash of Dragons Ends in a Devastating Loss

Meanwhile, as the battle continues to rage, the arrival of dragons might initially be seen as a point in Rhaenyra’s favor, especially since their riders are firmly on the side of Team Black. Yet the audience also knows that by this point, Rhaenyra’s oldest son, Jacaerys (Harry Collett), has taken his mother’s place at the Gullet against her objections, locking her in her room in an effort to protect her. Initially, it seems as though Jace has everything under control, especially since he and his dragon, Vermax, are reluctantly accompanied by his betrothed, Baela Targaryen (Bethany Antonia), on her own dragon, Moondancer. Yet neither of them could have predicted what viewers have already learned — that Baela’s sister, Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell), has just successfully bonded with a wild dragon in the Vale named Sheepstealer and is already flying to High Tide.

Campbell, who finally became a card-carrying member of House of the Dragon‘s most unique club this season, likens the experience of filming the show’s dragon riding scenes to “the best kept secret on-set,” and at first, Rhaena and Sheepstealer’s bond (which does serve as another distinct change from Fire & Blood) seems to be off to a good start, including a scene where Sheepstealer obligingly spits up and barbecues a goat to feed his desperately hungry rider. But any viewers who thought they were in for a heartwarming sequence à la How To Train Your Dragon are in for a rude awakening, especially once Rhaena and Sheepstealer officially join the battle. Initially, the presence of another dragon seems like it’ll give Rhaenyra’s side an advantage over their enemies, but Sheepstealer is entirely untrained and completely unpredictable — and what’s worse is that he can’t tell the difference between friend and foe.

Naturally, when Jace and Baela notice another dragon indiscriminately burning ships, they leap into action, but Antonia points out the obvious detail that prevents either of them from really recognizing that Rhaena is the rider desperately trying to regain control of her new mount. “All they can see in the war is this huge beast of a thing in the air. The size comparison is so hard to even describe, but Rhaena looks like the tiniest little figure in the distance.”

Sheepstealer changes tactics to target Baela and Moondancer instead, much to Rhaena’s horror, so Jace and Vermax fly to their aid — which enables him to get close enough to make out his own cousin as the rider, but his approach has also turned them into Sheepstealer’s new target. When Jace directs Vermax to fly lower in an effort to evade the wild dragon, the consequences are tragic for both of them. Although they were previously able to survive an attack from Lohar herself thanks to Baela’s quick action, a second strike is what ultimately proves fatal. As Vermax slowly sinks toward the water, Rhaena is left reeling, gasping out Jace’s name while Sheepstealer retreats. “I think she feels the entire weight of responsibility of Jace,” Campbell admits, when teeing up how their character will be grappling with her role in events as Season 3 continues to play out. “I think, rightly so, she feels dreadful, and she knows that because of her appearance into the fight, that is the reason that has caused all this, and that doesn’t pass her by.”

The episode’s conclusion is slightly different than what’s recorded in the pages of Fire & Blood; there, Vermax is hit by a grappling hook and crashes into a burning ship, but in House of the Dragon‘s version, fans are forced to watch as the dragon is slowly dragged down into the sea while Jace tries, with all his might, to get Vermax up in the air again. Reflecting on the scene, Collett confirms that his character isn’t necessarily considering that he’ll meet his end in this moment. “In Jace’s mind, there’s always a way out of everything. He is quite smart, so to speak.” In the same breath, the actor acknowledges that the show’s changes to Vermax’s fate are intended to convince the audience that survival is still possible. “I think it makes it 10 times more tense, as well, because you see him try to unbuckle everything. He’s trying to get the dragon up. It just makes people want to scream at their TVs and go, ‘Just get up!’ or whatever they’re feeling at that point in time.”

Even after Jace is able to unbuckle himself from Vermax’s saddle, there’s no indication that this is truly the end for him, Collett adds. “Because even before he gets hit, he grabs onto a piece of wood in the sea. There are boats around. He can wave someone down.” Any remaining hope is instantly extinguished, however, when the first arrow from a nearby ship carrying Triarchy pirates hits its mark — and then a second, and then a third, delivering a major blow to both the series and Rhaenyra herself, who currently has no knowledge of the fact that she’s just lost another son. As far as Collett is concerned, though, Jace was more than aware of the danger that awaited him when he chose to fly to the Gullet so that his mother wouldn’t have to. “I think it was a true shock when he got hit by that first arrow, and it’s sad, really. But he knew he was going into battle.”

New episodes of House of the Dragon Season 3 premiere Sundays on HBO.