House of the Dragon’s Ewan Mitchell loves not knowing what Aemond will do next
[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for the end of season 2 of House of the Dragon.]
No one is sitting happily in the season 2 finale of House of the Dragon. Rhaenyra and Alicent have a fresh, uneasy alliance; Aegon is on the run with Larys; Daemon and Criston are preparing to face each other in battle; Otto is stuck in a dungeon somewhere. And yet few people have seen as meteoric a rise and tumble as Aemond, who across this season rose from prince to prince regent, seriously maimed his brother, and took out two dragons (with Vhagar’s help). Then he got blindsided by dragonseed, burned a town out of anger, and got dressed down by his sister.
Actor Ewan Mitchell says that getting to play these kinds of big, dramatic swings is what he’s always relished in his role as Aemond.
“I do think Aemond is — he has curated this exterior that is a little bit larger than life,” Mitchell said going into the season, at a roundtable interview with press. “The inspiration that I found in ’80s horror-movie icons — they’re just so interesting without saying a word; they move so slow in the spaces that they inhabit. […] And just that idea of inevitability, it’s quite scary. You know, when someone believes that much, as much as Aemond does.”
Technically, none of the bad things that happen to him in the finale particularly wound his station. But Aemond has always been a little softer under the tough cypher that makes up his exterior. Despite theoretically being one of the most powerful men in Westeros, Aemond feels vulnerable.
As the season finale approached, Mitchell talked to Polygon about Aemond’s pressure points, where the end of season 2 leaves him, and the things he’s looking forward to in season 3 — whether or not Helaena (Phia Saban) is right about Aemond.
[Ed. note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.]
Polygon: You’ve spoken before about the influences you took in when crafting your approach to Aemond — you have Prometheus ; you have Heat ; Hallo
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