The House of the Dragon creative team breaks down how the show’s young actors were protected while filming the now-infamous Blood and Cheese scene. The moment features two assassins, hired by Daemon, killing the young heir and son of King Aegon II and Queen Helaena, Jaehaerys. The primary target of Team Black was Aemond, but, since the assassins couldn’t find him, they settled for Jaehaerys. The assassination was an attempt to avenge the death of Queen Rhaenyra’s son, Lucerys, making it an eye for an eye, or a son for a son.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, House of the Dragon showrunner Ryan Condal and Cheese actor Mark Stobbart detailed how the show’s young actors were protected while filming. Condal admitted that it would be irresponsible to expose kids to the specifics of the scene, and so the creative team took precautions when filming. For example, the hand that covers Jaehaerys’ mouth is actually the child actor’s father. Read their full comments below:
Condal: We knew that we would be challenged to get performances out of children that young — as a person who has kids around these ages, I’m intimately familiar with all of that. Then there are things that you can and cannot expose children to on a movie set. If you were to try to perform a faithful rendering of that story, you’d be challenged from all angles in terms of getting a performance out of a child. A lot of times it seems like the kid is going through that, but you’re using clever cutaways and insert shots.
Stobbart: We stood around a cot with a doll. Watching it is far more shocking than you could ever imagine, but in the grand scheme of filming it, it was like any other job.
Protecting The Young Actors Would Have Been Much Harder If The Book Was Faithfully Adapted
House Of The Dragon’s Depiction Of Blood & Cheese Disappointed Fans
While it may be true that the original scene was more impactful in Fire & Blood, protecting the child actors who were involved in the House of the Dragon scene was a priority that wasn’t lost on Condal and his creative team.
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While the Blood and Cheese scene in House of the Dragon is grim, it is much darker in the book, Fire & Blood. First off, in the source material, Aegon and Helaena had three children, and, when Blood and Cheese enter, they’re all wide awake when the duo forces the queen to choose one of her sons for death. Blood and Cheese even threaten Helaena with the rape of Jaehaera, her daughter, if she doesn’t choose quickly. She eventually chooses the third child, Maelor, who is told by Cheese that his mother wants him dead. Blood then instead beheads Jaehaerys.
This scene from Fire & Blood would have been much more difficult to adapt than the show’s version. First, the children were sleeping on the show, so they didn’t have to witness anything particularly violent or scary. Additionally, the decision to keep the worst of the violence off-screen and carried out with dolls ensured there was nothing unnerving for the young actors to witness. While Game of Thrones is known for being cold and provocative, bringing up rape and death could have traumatic effects on child actors. Therefore, it’s probably for the best that Blood and Cheese wasn’t adapted faithfully.
A faithful adaption, however, seems to be what viewers wanted. After the premiere of House of the Dragon season 2, many took to the internet to discuss their disappointment, calling the scene anticlimactic and underwhelming. While it may be true that the original scene was more impactful in Fire & Blood, protecting the child actors who were involved in the House of the Dragon scene was a priority that wasn’t lost on Condal and his creative team.