House Of The Dragon Star Recalls Shooting Latest ‘F**ked Up’ Sex Scene

This article contains spoilers for the most recent episode of House Of The Dragon.

House Of The Dragon, like Game Of Thrones before it, has become renowned for pushing the boundaries when it comes to its graphic content – but the latest instalment took things to another level.

There’s been something iffy brewing between Ewan Mitchell’s Aemond and Olivia Cooke’s Alicent for some time now, and in the most recent episode, viewers saw the mother and son pair engaged in an incestuous sex scene.

Eventually, it emerged that the sequence was actually all in Aemond’s head, and in reality, he was in bed with his new lover Alys, played by Gayle Rankin, while picturing his mother.

Since the episode aired, Gayle has opened up about filming the complicated sequence, describing the shoot as “very intimate and very odd but very professional”.

“We tried to like make jokes, just to keep it lighthearted because those scenes are not easy and they’re complicated and very technical,” she told Variety.

“So, it was also just like it was another day at the office for being like a very odd, fucked-up scene.”

In a separate interview with Decider, she also admitted she was happy to finally be able to talk about the scene – which proved shocking for many viewers.

She claimed: “It was the thing that we couldn’t talk about in the junket, you know? Because I think people were like, ‘What was the craziest scene you had to shoot?’. I think that was a pretty crazy fucking scene, you know, for all of us.”

“Those scenes can sometimes be really intense, but they’re also like ultimately stunt scenes in some ways,” she noted.

“So I think we all just like try to be really respectful and professional and also like quite keep it pretty lighthearted, you know? Because it was a very absurd scene.”

Gayle added that, in her view, viewers were seeing Aemond and Alys consummating their relationship for the first time.

“We’re seeing it happen in front of our eyes, which is… thank you HBO for, like, allowing us the privilege,” she quipped. “Yeah, but it’s early days of that endeavour, so it’s like vulnerable still, I think for them.”

Earlier in the season, Olivia admitted that shooting a lingering kiss between herself and her on-screen son – who is, in fact, only three years her junior – made for an “odd” experience.

“It’s kind of shocking,” Ewan agreed. “But then also, I just recognised a tremendous challenge and an opportunity to show Aemond in a new light.”

“It’s quite a difficult pill to swallow, isn’t it? Kissing your mum on the lips, especially in that way,” he continued. “I mean, Aemond, growing up, he never felt like he was loved enough by his mum and his family around him, and a kid needs that unconditional love to develop a balanced view of themselves.

“And Aemond, because he never had that, he’s got a very skewed perception and a very strange way of showing love.”

House Of The Dragon continues on Mondays on HBO Max, Sky and Now in the UK.