House of the Dragon star Kieran Bew wanted to look like his dragon
Kieran Bew knows the power of good facial hair. He credits the look for Hugh Hammer’s success taming the massive Vermithor in House of the Dragon’s seventh episode of the season, “The Red Sowing.”
“I had a big beard, and everybody was discussing whether I should shave it off or not,” Bew says. “And I just said: I love Vermithor’s design of his teeth, sort of looking like they’re going in all different directions; like if he bit you, it would be the most painful thing, almost like being trapped in an Iron Maiden or something. And I felt like it was a slightly funny joke about people who have dogs, end up looking like their dogs.”
Bew was aware that Hugh’s whole season arc was leading up to his showdown with Vermithor, and aware of how many aesthetic choices were there to set up the depth of the decision to go to Dragonstone: He kept the beard, and his hair the same color as Daemon’s (if not Viserys’), with a bit of Bew’s own natural hue mixed own. And as he watched Hugh’s agitation with the ruling class of King’s Landing grow, Bew found the role in little beats, like being so desperate for food that he punches a fellow commoner to get a bag.
To him, the scenes were “always like a skeleton” for the larger character arc. But like any good actor (or, as is the case with interpreting a lot of Fire & Blood’s textbook-like account, historian), it was his job to piece together the lived humanity between that.
“To get given a scene where my character is revealing to his wife something enormous [...] and he’s arguing to go on a suicide mission,” Bew marvels. “That’s how much he’s decided to keep that a secret. Because of shame, because of how [his mom] behaved, because of his upbringing, because of how painful it was.
“He’s been trying to do something else. And now he’s saying: Actually this is the only thing I can do. I’m in so much pain; I’ve got to do something, I’ve got to do this.”
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And so, Bew took all that energy into that final scene of episode 7, where
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