Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) is one of the characters who has undergone the most changes throughout House of the Dragon. Nicknamed the “Rebel Prince,” he started as an heir willing to do anything to sit on the Iron Throne; even if those aspirations caused irritation to his brother, King Viserys (Paddy Considine), and his niece, Princess Rhaenyra (played young by Milly Alcock and adult by Emma D’Arcy), named by the monarch as his heir despite no woman ever having held that role.
Time passed and a series of events made it plausible that a marriage between Daemon and Rhaenyra would strengthen her claim. With that union, he didn’t exactly become an upright and benevolent guy, but it did allow the character to gain new layers and generate conflicting feelings among viewers (remember the expression he adopted when he learned of Simon Strong’s fateful end at the start of the third season?).
The English actor understands the public’s fascination with labeling his character. But he is emphatic in pointing out that none of that is in his head while filming each new season of the series (which concludes its third cycle this Sunday the 9th at 9:00 PM on HBO and HBO Max).
“What the audience should do is watch, judge, and label. Is he a villain? Is he not a villain? Is he a hero? Is he an antihero? You know, all these things said about a character,” he tells Culto via video call.
“My real main interest with him has been to make this character the worst version of himself and push him as far as possible to the edge, to the cliff’s edge, to the things you think a character can’t recover from. And that’s where we find the essence. If that makes him a villain, an antihero… I don’t know. That’s something others will have to figure out. But I think that’s where it gets most interesting,” he suggests.
One of the most talked-about moments of the third season happened at the end of the second episode. After entering King’s Landing without much opposition, the Blacks take Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) from his prison and kill him in front of some citizens, marking the violent end of the old regime. Aware of the symbolic weight of that episode for his partner’s reign, Daemon urges Rhaenyra to carry out the beheading herself.
“I think he whispers: everyone is watching. If you don’t do it yourself, if you don’t take responsibility, if you don’t show the world that heads will roll… It’s a kind of power statement,” he points out.
Then Smith notes a second, less visible reading. “I suppose, on a subliminal and personal level, as a character, there’s a kind of deep eroticism in sharing Otto’s beheading and seeing the person you love do it. Although in a way he would love to (do it). It’s complicated.”
In the current season Daemon has also committed actions that have undermined the queen’s trust. One example: he assured her he had killed the rider of the wild dragon known as Sheepstealer – responsible for the murder of Jace, the monarch’s eldest son – hiding that the true identity of that rider was Rhaena (Phoebe Campbell), his youngest daughter, who has found refuge in the Vale of Arryn.
In other passages the prince consort has been outright overwhelmed. As a result of a plan orchestrated by Ormund Hightower (James Norton), the Gold Cloaks suffered attack after attack and lost many of their men to meticulously organized unknown assailants. Overwhelmed, all members of the Guard resign and leave the city unprotected, and their main leader completely demoralized.
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Despite the mix of successes and mistakes, of commendable gestures and aberrant actions, Smith continues to maintain his loyalty to the cause defended by Daemon.
“This leads us to a more general idea about being an actor; your job is to side with the character you play,” he states. “I think if you asked every actor on every side, they would identify with the faction their characters belong to. And very strongly.”
The conflict at the center of House of the Dragon has intensified and become more complex, but some things don’t change. More than four years after the start of filming the first cycle, Matt Smith still hasn’t gotten used to wearing the blonde wig they put on him every day to embody his character, a process he describes as “quite exhausting”.
“With Daemon there are many physical challenges. It’s a challenge to put the wig on every day again. That requires patience. I have Stacey (Louise Johnson, hair and makeup supervisor), one of the most amazing makeup artists, who has made it really beautiful, honestly,” he highlights.
Both she and Amanda Knight, the department designer, “have made going and sitting in their chair every day a very pleasant experience. And that’s a talent, because I was totally against (the idea),” he expresses.
Discomforts aside, Smith generally enjoys projects far from the real world. That affinity is not only linked to his work as an actor – he was Doctor Who for three seasons, between 2010 and 2013 – but also as a member of the audience. He says he has spent the last couple of years watching “all kinds of horror movies” and that he “loved” Project End of the World, the bright science fiction film starring Ryan Gosling that triumphed at the global box office a few months ago.
“When these kinds of things are done well, I think it’s a good way to transport the audience out of their daily life to an interesting place for a couple of hours,” he opines.
Pending to see what the future holds for his role in the rest of the House of the Dragon story (it is already defined that there will be a final fourth season), in 2027 he will be seen on the big screen with Star Wars: Starfighter, the blockbuster led by Gosling himself and directed by Shawn Levy (Deadpool & Wolverine). With a touch of dark humor, he limits himself to sharing one phrase about that film: “It’s set in space.”
