House of the Dragon might be one of the most-watched shows of the year. While nowhere as big as Game of Thrones, the show has cut out a major portion of the mainstream, that has gotten fans around the world invested in the politics and powerplays of Westeros again.
However, despite how big the show is, Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke were so taken in the popularity of House of the Dragon, that they thought a lot of things that cities they were in were doing was because they were there to shoot or a premiere. Two key instances of this happened when Emma D’Arcy was shooting in Wales and then again when Olivia Cooke was in Paris for a premiere.
Emma D’Arcy thought Wales had very passionate fans of the show
Emma D’Arcy revealed that she had been shooting in Wales for 5 weeks. House of the Dragon uses a lot of draconic imagery, which was also present in a slew of Welsh courtyards and public spaces, something that intrigued D’Arcy, given that she thought it was in celebration of the show shooting in the city. Speaking in an interview about the same, she said:
We shot in Welsh for five weeks, and it was amazing, but there are obviously lots of dragons in people’s gardens and stuff and for at least like five days, I thought it was because the show was shooting there and I thought ‘How does everyone know this and I suppose, I guess, wow the show is, you know…Yeah, so it took me like a week to remember the Welsh flag.
Given that the Welsh flag has a dragon on it, the iconography is in every corner of the country. This D’Arcy mistook as a celebration of the show, even if a lot of the shooting was done under wraps and in secret. However, she was not the only one who had such an embarrassing moment, as Olivia Cooke told her on story about a similar situation.
Olivia Cooke thought a stadium being constructed for the Olympics was for House of the Dragon
When Olivia Cooke was in Paris for her show’s premiere, the actress was similarly under the suspicion that a stadium that was being constructed was indeed for the marketing of House of the Dragon. However, she quickly concluded that the show might not be the only thing that the city was getting excited about.
Last week we pulled up the premiere and we got to the hotel after coming from the airport, and me and Phia (Saban) were in the car together, and we saw scaffolding in this like big, like stadium being built and we were like ‘Oh my God, how embarrassing. This is for House of the Dragon.’ And then I was like ‘It’s for the Olympics, you f*****g idiot’.
While House of the Dragon has been quite the show, allowing a large section of the mainstream audience to dive back into the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, the show has not been able to reach the heights of pop culture notoriety that its predecessor found itself in.
However, there are a lot of Game of Thrones-related shows on the horizon, chief among them A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which will follows the exploits of Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire, Aegon V Targaryen. This could not only boost interest in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire but also allow the franchise to grow in the different ways that it does.
House of the Dragon Season 2 is currently streaming on HBO Max
