House of the Dragon Actor Was Blown Away by the Show’s Massive Sets

Ryan Corr, who stars in the upcoming Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon, is impressed by how enormous the sets were. House of the Dragon, which was created by Ryan J. Condal with A Song of Ice and Fire saga author George R. R. Martin, is set to premiere on HBO in 2022. The ten-episode first season of the series is based on his 2018 work Fire & Blood, which follows the fall of House Targaryen during the Dance of the Dragons civil war. It takes place two centuries before the events of the original series, in which Mother of Dragons Daenerys Targaryen is the last of her line.

The series will focus on the exploits of the Targaryen royal family, led by King Viserys I Targaryen (Paddy Considine). Other main characters include his eldest daughter Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy), his younger brother and heir apparent Prince Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith), Daemon’s rival and Hand of the King Ser Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), and his daughter Lady Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke). The rest of the ensemble cast will be filled out by Steve Toussaint, Eve Best, Sonoya Mizuno, Fabien Frankel, Graham McTavish, Ryan Corr, Jefferson Hall, Matthew Needham, David Horovitch, Bill Patterson, and many more playing various members of the Targaryen court.

After coming home from filming on the series, Australian actor Corr, who plays the strong warrior Breakbones, spoke with If.com. He revealed how shocking it was to step onto the sumptuous sets of the big-budget series. He compared it to “a live Shakespeare play,” with “actual jousting tournaments and full-level scale castles with fire cauldrons hanging on the roof.” Read the full quote below:

The sheer size of it was something I was amazed by. When you are walking into operational sets with actual jousting tournaments and full-level scale castles with fire cauldrons hanging on the roof, it’s a pretty incredible place to be. It’s like walking into a live Shakespeare play.

Corr is an actor with many years of experience, but a lot of the projects he has worked on in his native Australia have been much more small scale. Indeed, the project he filmed immediately before House of the Dragon was The Secrets She Keeps, a much more low-key drama about two pregnant women who meet at a supermarket, unknowingly setting off a chain of thrilling events. His closest brush with a major franchise thus far was the low-budget horror sequel Wolf Creek 2, so this level of operation would certainly be unknown to him.

House of the Dragon clearly knows that it has massive shoes to fill now that Game of Thrones has ended. The team is clearly pulling out all the stops to put on a spectacle that rivals the original series. Whether or not they ultimately succeed depends on the viewers, but as far as the cast is concerned they certainly seem impressed by what HBO and the show has in store for audiences.