House of the Dragon: Poignant Daemon and Viserys scene was improvised, director reveals

Paddy Considine and Matt Smith have been widely praised for their performances in the HBO series

*Warning – spoilers ahead for House of the Dragon, episode eight.

House of the Dragon’s eighth episode provided perhaps the most poignant moment of the series so far.

As a sickly, aged Viserys (Paddy Considine) slowly makes his way up to the Iron Throne, his crown drops off his head onto the floor. As he bends to pick it up, his brother Daemon (played by Matt Smith) picks it up and places it on his head as he sits on the throne.

It’s an emotionally charged moment between the brothers who have had their differences throughout the series – and it turns out it happened completely by accident.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, the episode’s director Geeta Patel revealed that the crown was never supposed to fall off Considine’s head.

“When we were shooting that – I think the rehearsal again, the first day – the crown fell off of Paddy’s head and Matt [Smith] picked it up and we just kept going. We didn’t stop [filming]. There was a discovery there of this moment,” Patel said.

The director said that after the take ended, she, Considine and Smith got together and decided to film the scene with the crown falling for real.

“We decided to shoot it both ways with the crown falling off and with the crown not falling off. Every time the crown fell off, all of us just caught our breath,” she said.

“I was so thankful that accident happened, that the crown fell off because it proved to be, at least for me, quite a heavy moment and quite a turning point for a storyline that had started in the pilot: Hey, I want your crown and by the end here I'm gonna put the crown back on your head and I'm gonna help you to your throne.”

House of the Dragon continues in the UK on Sky Atlantic on Mondays at 2am, before repeating at 9pm later that day. It is also available to watch on NOW.