Director Alan Taylor Season 2 ‘Home of the Dragon’ Battle Interview

Nothing burns like betrayal. The long-awaited tangle of dragons and the strategic crafty of the Aristocracy ring by way of in Home of the Dragon Season 2, Episode 4. Titled “The Crimson Dragon and the Gold,” director and govt producer Alan Taylor helms The Battle at Rook’s Relaxation, which finds Rhaenys (Eve Finest) on the warpath to defend her household’s kingdom and declare to the Iron Throne. After Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) makes an ill-fated choice to experience Sunfyre into the throngs of struggle, alongside his brother Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) and Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel), Rhaenys and her dragon Meleys find yourself sparing with the younger, misguided ruler. That’s till Aemond swoops in to save lots of the day with Vhagar killing Rhaenys whereas additionally sneak attacking Sunfyre, main Aegon to plummet from the sky to nice harm. It was a brutal episode that set social media and followers on hearth because the outcomes of the struggle perpetually modified the scheming underbelly of King’s Touchdown. 

Right here, Taylor speaks to Deadline about waging struggle between brothers, the rising demise toll, and the problem of making the proper dragon battle. 

DEADLINE: How lengthy did this huge battle episode take to movie?

ALAN TAYLOR: I form of have a psychological block about how lengthy we spend on filming issues. Every episode is totally different, and the schedule additionally displays that. One of many attention-grabbing issues about the best way we movie Home of the Dragon is that we block-shoot the whole season. It’s not conventional in that one individual shoots their episode after which the following individual is available in and shoots their episode. We’re all capturing our episodes on a regular basis. That’s why it’s laborious to maintain monitor of what number of days we get. Particularly for the battle since you’re actually leaping out and in of units, and different administrators are coming in for the whole season. The primary week all 5 administrators labored on one thing. 

DEADLINE: You’re no stranger to directing Recreation of Thrones, however I’d argue that this episode of Home of the Dragon is one in all your greatest challenges but. What was your preliminary response to receiving the script for the episode, and the way did you delineate what you have been going to do?  

TAYLOR: It’s all the time an analogous course of. You get the script and have to determine how you’ll do it and concentrate on the way it matches into the general image. This one was a bit discombobulated as a result of we began off with 10 episodes. I used to be going to do a special battle sequence on the finish, after which issues obtained reshuffled. We have been properly into prep earlier than I used to be assigned this one. Realizing that the battle was coming in Episode 4, in the midst of the season, and understanding that we needed to construct storylines that might proceed to develop over the course of the season formed how we approached that. 

The largest factor was that I used to be monitoring the truth that this could be the primary time dragons have been deployed as a weapon, the primary time they went to dragon struggle. For the course of the primary season and the start of the second season the neatest folks in Westeros are saying it is a dangerous concept. So, we needed to ship on what it means to deploy them. The metaphor I used to be carrying round was that that is the primary time somebody decides to drop a tactical nuclear weapon, and the way will that change everyone concerned? And every thing grew out of that. That outlined how we formed the battle itself. It outlined how we adopted the battle by way of our characters, like Ser Criston Cole, who’s answerable for this however can also be probably the most devastated by it. He’s a warrior who can by no means see struggle the identical once more after this. So, what you do is work out what the large concepts are after which try to form every thing round it. 

DEADLINE: Talking of a tactical weapon, that shot of Vhagar touchdown on the sphere is wild. She’s basically stomping round whereas all this black smoke is behind her. It looks like D-Day.

TAYLOR: Proper, just like the opening to Saving Personal Ryan. That sequence that [Steven] Spielberg did is inspirational for each filmmaker about the right way to seize the fog of struggle. I’m glad you picked up on that. When Vhagar slams into the bottom, that’s the watershed second, the nuclear blast for our episode. It knocks out our principal character, our standpoint character, Cole. From that time on, it’s a special world. 

DEADLINE: What have been the opposite inspirations for this episode? 

TAYLOR: The factor I like about George R.R Martin’s writing is that it’s grounded in actuality and grounded in historical past. So, it’s fantasy and the dragons, however it’s completely based mostly on the fact of issues. So, when my accomplice and I have been designing the battle sequence and the dragon combating, we spent a whole lot of time taking a look at a number of issues. One is the attractive relationship between the characters and their dragons was one thing we needed to painting. We additionally appeared on the means horse house owners work together with their horses. When Aegon is greeting Sunfyre, that was lifted from how I’ve seen horse house owners work together with their horses.

Extra importantly, we checked out a whole lot of documentary footage of birds of prey and the way they have interaction and combat. And so, we invented this second that additionally makes Rhaenys appear very sensible the place … As a result of we observed that birds of prey will do that factor the place in the event that they really feel they’re being encroached upon, they flip the other way up they usually have interaction talon to talon. And they also’re combating within the air, however their talons are engaged, they usually develop into this demise spiral right down to the bottom. So, it’s a sport of hen to see who’s going to launch. And so, we stole that and used that for the large climactic second in Rook’s Relaxation.

DEADLINE: Now, let’s discuss an actual demise spiral. I believe we’re nonetheless spiraling from the lack of Rhaenys. 

TAYLOR: It’s humorous you deliver that up as a result of my profession has weirdly was this factor the place I regularly homicide folks’s favourite characters. In Recreation of Thrones, I killed Ned Stark. In The Sopranos, I killed Christopher Moltisanti. It goes on and on. Then, lastly, I obtained to kill Rhaenys and the dragon on this one. It’s all the time the identical viewers response, which I like, that factor the place folks get indignant at their TV or HBO or with me. Then, on the identical time, they like it and it’s extremely thrilling for them. So, it’s a beautiful metaphor for the way we take care of our personal mortality, I believe. Someone we actually care about is dying, however they’re fictional, so it form of allows you to off the hook—a trial run for dealing with demise in a enjoyable means.

DEADLINE: I’ll by no means allow you to off the hook for that one. However now, let’s discuss your aesthetics within the scene main as much as her demise. She’s flying up above the combating on the bottom, and it’s peaceable and practically silent apart from the sound of the wind and the dragon wings flapping. Then there’s the occasional swell of this lovely music. Discuss this. 

TAYLOR: I’m so glad you’re highlighting the quiet and the piece. So, we’re up above the fray and separate from it. There’s peace and sweetness, and all of us want we might be flying on dragons – in all probability. There’s quiet there, and later in her demise second when she’s falling, releasing and letting go. That’s a ravishing factor that I’m glad we obtained to seize. However the problem it raised was, how do you actually combine what’s happening with the dragons and what’s happening on the bottom? That was one of many greatest challenges. It could actually’t simply be an air present with visible results. It has to really feel like one thing we’re actually experiencing. Every kind of thought went into how we floor the dragons and join them to the bottom. That’s a part of the rationale why they preserve slamming into the bottom. 

Each digicam angle on the dragon is an actual point-of-view angle. There’s no magic cameras flying round. It’s both we’re watching them actually from a personality’s standpoint, or we’re watching them from the place a digicam may be mounted. For instance, the cameras are mounted on the entrance of a dragon like a hood decoration. Once more, going again to the unique George R.R. Martin factor of making an attempt to take this fantastical stuff and make it grounded in our actual expertise as a lot as doable. 

DEADLINE: What number of cameras are we speaking about for a scale this huge? And what number of extras? 

TAYLOR: We all the time have two cameras on set, regularly three. And in a battle, you will have perhaps 4. Then there’s additionally a second unit led by the good Rowley [Irlam], the stunt coordinator on the present. He has two cameras going across the nook doing what he’s doing simply to chop into our footage. There’s a whole lot of cameras. For extras, I believe we had 400 for sure days, after which there’s replication that we do, so it looks like 1000’s. Even once I obtained to the battlefield, I used to be amazed by what the present was in a position to put on the market within the subject. Not simply the numbers of troopers however separate liberties from totally different homes. Excellent armor on the lads but additionally on the horses. So, it’s an enormous real-world footprint, however you must increase it with know-how. 

DEADLINE: Again to Eve Finest. Are you able to discuss working together with her in these remaining days of capturing as Rhaenys? 

TAYLOR: It was pleasant. I used to be not a part of season one. I had simply got here in for season two. And also you’re assembly this array of actors who have been so spectacular and who already know their characters, so it may be form of intimidating to return in and presume to direct them as a result of they’ve already been doing it for some time. She was great. She was very collaborative within the course. And I believe she might inform we have been offering her a reasonably good end. I believe she was proud of what she knew was happening. I’d heard she was not having enjoyable on the dragons in season one, being on the dragon buck once you’re being bounced round like that. However she was only a nice trooper for our factor. I believe we’d improved her armor a bit of bit, and he or she simply knew it will be an important sendoff for her. She was pleasant. She spent hours on this dragon buck with a computerized digicam following her round. She was solely on the battlefield itself as soon as mendacity within the mud trying lifeless. However aside from that, most of her stuff was on our stage. I attempted to experience the dragon buck at one level, however they wouldn’t let me as a result of they mentioned insurance coverage wouldn’t cowl it. 

DEADLINE: How are you collaborating with showrunner Ryan Condal to get the episode’s imaginative and prescient throughout?  

TAYLOR: He and his staff write the episodes, and then you definately are available to form it—particularly one thing as huge and sophisticated because the Episode 4 battle. There have been issues I needed to speak about when it comes to ensuring it had that sturdy construction the place it constructed as much as impede our nuclear occasion. As soon as Rhaenys dies that’s the emotional form of conclusion of the factor. We talked about ensuring there wasn’t an excessive amount of story to play on after that as a result of I believe our emotional factor crashes there.

Then there was the collaboration of bodily issues and the right way to stage it. I selected Bourne Wooden in England. Ridley Scott makes use of it in nearly all of his motion pictures; I additionally shot Thor: The Darkish World there. It’s a beautiful location as a result of it gave us this tree line, a subject, after which the fort that wound up shaping how we did all of the drama. As a result of I like the concept that the troopers are additionally hiding within the tree line. When you step out of the tree line, your dragon fodder and it’s a killing subject. That was stuff that was not a lot within the script because it obtained created as we discovered the situation and labored on it. He’s a great collaborator. There’s a dialogue between the story and truly staging the factor. They converse to one another.

DEADLINE: One of many different stunning issues was Aemond setting Aegon and his dragon on hearth. You see that for a cut up second, Aegon was completely happy to see his brother doubtlessly help him in battle, then it flashes to horror so shortly when he realizes his brother is able to kill him. Aemond makes this sly smile. Discuss working with the actors on this. 

TAYLOR: As a result of the characters are wealthy and layered, there’s some complexity and ambiguity. I needed to not be solely clear about how a lot Aemond supposed to destroy his brother. A part of what’s happening right here is that if his brother goes away, he ascends to the throne. That’s partly driving him. It’s additionally a tactical transfer; he’s blasting Meleys, Rhaenys, and his brother, who’s an fool for being there and shouldn’t be there. So, he’s form of that collateral injury. After I learn the scripts, I didn’t know the way great his character was going to be till I began working with Tom Glynn-Carney, who performs Aegon. I believe he’s in all probability my favourite actor within the present as a result of he brings a lot innocence and humor to this dastardly man and mixes the 2 sides of his persona so properly. It’s so comprehensible that he must go to this battle as a result of his mother mentioned—within the worst parenting second of all— “Simply do nothing. I count on nothing of you.” And so, it’s a ravishing second when he decides to go off and present his heroism.

After which, in fact, by turning up, he simply screws every thing up simply by being there. So, on his facet, he’s terrified, in over his head, and making an attempt to be a hero. He sees his brother coming and, for a second, thinks oh, thank God. After which he begins to comprehend what’s actually taking place. So, all of that stuff is enjoying on Tom’s face as he goes from reduction, inhalation to horror. Then, the paradox tracks all over. We see him crash into the woods, however solely from a distance. After we discover his physique on the finish—in additional ambiguity—we have now Aemond standing over him with the well-known knife, perhaps intending to complete him off. We’ll by no means know. We don’t reveal the state of his physique a lot, we simply know he’s smoldering there. For the viewers and for the residents of King’s Touchdown, we don’t know if he’s lifeless or not for some time was the intention there.

DEADLINE: Even in that second once we see Aemond with the knife, such as you mentioned, it’s so ambiguous. He’s enjoying with the knife, we marvel if he’s going to complete the job by killing his incapacitated brother, however then Ser Criston Cole is available in and doubtlessly stops Aemond from killing him. Even the purpose that Ewan Mitchell makes with the lazy flick of the wrist is attention-grabbing. 

TAYLOR: We have been making an attempt to maintain ambiguity there. When Cole finds him he … I needed him to be brandishing his sword in a means that might be threatening or might be him placing his sword away as a result of we didn’t fairly know the right way to learn what was simply taking place. Cole enters the scene not understanding what was about to occur. Did I simply cease regicide or am I being paranoid about this? How a lot can I belief this man? In order that he places his sword away after which finds the dagger that tracks by way of all of Recreation of Thrones and is the dagger that kills a really well-known character later. He’s simply fidgeting with it. I like the truth that he used that to level to his brother. However it’s all simply meant to be true to Aemond’s conflicted character. He does in all probability love his brother, however he additionally would profit by his demise. And he additionally has contempt for him for not being the chief that he is aware of he might be.

[This interview has been edited for length and clarity.]