House of the Dragon Cast Don’t Mince Words About Season 3 Premiere Battle: ‘Pain,’ ‘Bloodlust Chaos’

To no one’s surprise, the cast of HBO’s House of the Dragon can’t say much about the upcoming third season, which drops June 21. All they can do is tease what’s to come, something they’ve all become very creative at doing.

For instance, when asked at the ATX TV Festival in Austin on May 29 about the season premiere, which focuses on the long-awaited Battle of the Gullet, Steve Toussaint (who plays Corlys Velaryon) tries to describe it using one hell of a metaphor.

“Do you remember the movie Rocky III with Mr. T as Clubber Lang?” he asks. “There’s a moment when they ask Clubber Lang a question: ‘What do you predict for the fight?’ All he says is, in this gritted teeth way, ‘Pain.’ That is Episode 1 this season: pain.”

Abubakar Salim, who plays Alyn, Corlys’ bastard son, is sitting next to Toussaint when he says this and immediately loses his mind. “That is so good!” he says. “Man is that so true!”

Everything you need for summer TV:

Not to be outdone, Salim takes his own stab at describing the Season 3 premiere: “Bloodlust chaos and true primal ferocity.”

For those who know the history of Westeros, the fictional land built by Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin, they know what is coming. It’s a particularly carnage-heavy chapter in the era of Westeros chronicled in Fire & Blood, the book series that House of the Dragon is built on. But the cast and HBO are encouraging those informed fans to keep an open mind going into the new season because the history of Westeros may already be foretold by Martin’s work, but House of the Dragon has proven it is willing to do a few rewrites.

“If it was a carbon copy of what was written, it would be boring,” says Harry Collett, who plays Jace Targaryen. “There has to be a surprise in everything, and I feel like this show never fails to do it every time.”

In particular for Jace and his cousin/wife Baela (Bethany Antonia), this season is a chance to step up to the plate in a way that they were clamoring for in Season 2. But unlike most couples in this series, they do so as a unit. It’s merely the world around them that is in chaos.

“You meet them here in Season 2 as a true pair, that’s for sure,” Antonia says. “They’re definitely a united front and they’re ready to step up to whatever is asked of them. At the end of Season 2, they were just sort of desperate to be involved in what the adults were doing and to be considered equals. They still want that, but now they are armed with actual power. With experience.”

From Jace’s standpoint though, there is a bit of pressure weighing down on him as the son of Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy), the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. Having been sheltered at home for much of Season 2 to ensure his safety after the death of his brother, Jace is champing at the bit to get a piece of this growing rebellion.

“I’m extremely at boiling point,” Collett says. “No one’s really listening to me. I’ve got so much passion and I’m literally a ticking timebomb that’s about to go off.”

A similar tension rests with Corlys and Alyn’s relationship, which isn’t built on a life of shared experience but rather a suddenly essential partnership that is about as rocky as the seas through which they will soon chart a course into battle.

“It’s awkward and still frosty, for sure,” Salim says.

But more than ever before, Corlys is willing and ready to be some semblance of a father figure to Alyn, if only to prove to himself that his late wife Rhaenys (Eve Best) was right about him.

ALSO READ: Everything we know about House of the Dragon Season 3

“I think he’s trying to prove he’s a good man and prove that he was worthy of his wife’s love,” Toussaint says. “She told him he needs to recognize Alyn as his son, and there is this stain in his son’s eyes when he looks at Corlys. He is one of the last links, his blood relatives, and he’s looking at him like, ‘You ain’t sh**.’ So yeah, he’s got to fix that.”

All of that will be made infinitely more difficult by the fact that the Battle of the Gullett will be fought on sea and in the skies with dragons. Antonia says that Baela and her dragon, Moondancer, are better than they have ever been, despite being bonded since birth. That’s due, in part, because near the end of Season 2, Rhaenyra sent Baela out on scouting missions to find intel about the movement of her enemies and their firebreathers.

“They’ve not had any battle experience, but they’ve had a long time together,” she says. “We had a lot of journeys together recently.
I think at the start of the season, she’s in her prime of dragon riding. She’s feeling really experienced.”

But Jace and his dragon, Vermax, are just ready to get off the bench, even if their return to action is sure to be a harrowing chapter in Westeros history. 

“Come on, saddle up,” he says of that dragon and rider relationship. “Sh**’s about to get real.”

House of the Dragon premieres June 21 at 9/8c on HBO and HBO Max.