Matt Smith is one of the most prominent actors on the cast of House Of The Dragon, a Game of Thrones spinoff set in the Seven Kingdoms. He is known to series lovers as the Eleventh Doctor in Doctor Who and as Prince Philip in Netflix’s The Crown. Smith initially had some doubts about playing Daemon Targaryen in the spinoff series as it came soon after the finale season of Game of Thrones.
Smith was concerned that audiences were already familiar with the story of House of the Dragon. He came to understand that the spinoff series was independent of its predecessor and told things on a bigger scale. The second season of the series will focus on the much anticipated Targaryen Civil War between Rhaenyra’s team black and Alicent’s team green.
Matt Smith Had Concerns Before Signing On For A Game Of Thrones Spin-Off
Matt Smith was one of the few faces that writer Ryan Condal had in mind for the role of Daemon Targaryen in the Game of Thrones spinoff, House of the Dragons. He soon met with Smith in 2020, only a year after the divisive finale of the original show premiered on HBO. Smith had major concerns for the role and most of them derived from the success of Game of Thrones.
Speaking to Variety, Smith revealed that he feared that the series could never live up to the legacy of what had come before. He shared that everything that made the Emilia Clarke-led show changed. He shared that the audiences changed, the consumption of such content changed, and the market became saturated. He shared with Variety:
Audiences have changed. The way TV is consumed has changed. You can see a market saturate itself and envelop itself, and become obsolete.
The Last Night in Soho actor shared his worries with the creators of the show, Condal and Miguel Sapochnik. His first response to the creators approaching him was, “My concern is that we’ve seen this story told. That’s the first thing I said.” Even after he landed the major role in the series, Smith was worried whether the audience wanted the series with its huge scale.
Smith was surprised when the audience response was overwhelmingly positive when the series premiered on HBO and Max streaming service. It even emerged as the winner among the two highly anticipated fantasy series released in 2022, the other being The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
Smith is still humble about the success of the show, as he tells the outlet that he didn’t expect his show to outmatch Game of Thrones. He shared:
In a way, I was lucky, because I had that in ‘Doctor Who’ a bit. But it feels like people judge it on its own terms. You’re never going to create the moment in time that ‘Game of Thrones’ was — the love and affection and scale of that show. It’s never going to be that, because it was a moment in time.
As the show enters a thrilling and intense second season, Smith will be at the center of all events about to happen. As revealed in the trailer, the show will now explore the full-blown rivalry between Emma D’Arcy‘s Rhaenyra Targaryen and Olivia Cooke‘s Alicent Hightower as they make their claim to the Iron Throne.
House Of The Dragon Is Very Different From Game Of Thrones
While Game of Thrones adapted George R. R. Martin‘s A Song of Ice and Fire novels to a large extent, House of the Dragon set its focus on parts of Martin’s novel Fire & Blood. The focus here is only on Targaryens as opposed to the multiple kingdoms in Game of Thrones. The series would end sooner right after the devastating war of succession, known as the Dance of the Dragons.
While the focus is narrower, House of the Dragon boasts a scale that its predecessor could only imagine. Game of Thrones first season budget was $6 million per episode, with the pilot episode costing $10 million (via E! News). According to Variety, the final season budget was $15 million per episode.
However, HBO spends a massive $20 million per episode for Matt Smith’s series (via Variety). The difference could be seen in how some of the scenes were shot in both series. An example would be the jousting tournament scene which had an extravagant setting in HoTD compared to GoT.
Both Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon Season 1 are now available on Max. The second season of the prequel series will premiere on HBO and Max on Sunday, June 16.
