House Of The Dragon Star Talks About That Grisly Scene From The Series Premiere
The long-awaited Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon, finally premiered on August 21, and it contained a shocking, stomach-turning scene involving Aemma and King Viserys. Paddy Considine, who plays King Viserys, has now commented further on the gruesome scene and discussed what it was like to film.
Spoilers for House of the Dragon follows below.
In the series premiere, Viserys and his wife Aemma are expecting a child, and not just any child. This will be the heir to the throne. Viserys believes in his heart it will be the boy he so desperately wants. When the time comes, and labor begins, Aemma has trouble birthing the child. A maester suggests a new method involving cutting into the stomach to remove the baby. The resulting blood loss would likely kill the mother, so Viserys had to choose between saving his wife or his child.
He chose to save the child.
The ensuing scene was tough to watch, with Aemma, played by Sian Brooke, writhing and screaming in bed as the maester comes to cut her stomach open to remove the child. Viserys is kneeling at Aemma's side, holding her hand, as the baby is cut from her stomach. After losing so much blood, Aemma dies.
Viserys has a son, but the boy dies not long after he is born. Viserys ultimately decides to make Rhaenyra queen instead of trying again for another boy.
Considine spoke about this challenging scene in an interview with Collider, saying Brooke had «the biggest job of the day,» considering it was such a long and physical shoot.
«There were a lot of technical things we were dealing with, with pipes pumping blood. You can't just do a half-performance, when doing that kind of thing. I think she lost her voice, by the end of the day, but it was just the more incredible
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