From co-showrunners Ryan Condal (Colony) and Miguel Sapochnik (Game of Thrones), who are also executive producers along with author George R.R. Martin, the HBO series House of the Dragon explores the Targaryen family with all the power, danger, rivalry, jealous, betrayal, murder and love that could either make them invincible or tear them apart. When you throw in powerful dragons, it becomes impossible to know who to trust or where loyalties lie, and the Iron Throne that they’re all fighting for is not kind in its embrace of whoever sits upon it.

Collider got the opportunity to sit down with co-stars Steve Toussaint (who plays Lord Corlys Velaryon, the richest man in Westeros that shares two children with his wife, Princess Rhaenys Targaryen) and Eve Best (who plays Princess Rhaenys Targaryen, once a possible contender for the Iron Throne) to chat about what keeps them connected to their characters, how dangerous it is to have ambition in a world like this, the key to survival, and why a taste of power just never seems to be enough.

Collider: I’m so fascinated by everything happening on this show. Everything is so complicated and layered, and I can’t imagine what it’s like to keep track of all of that. Is there one thing that really always connects you back to the character, that helps you wrap your head around the scope of it all?

EVE BEST: For me, it’s always the other person in the scene, and very often it’s [Steve Toussaint]. All of the complicated stuff can be a real minefield and a real head fry. But actually, the bottom line is that that’s, in fact, somebody else’s business. I’ve found, in the past, that can be a source of slight frustration, coming from a theater background where it’s super collaborative. It’s all very collaborative, but very often, in the theater, because there are just much fewer people involved, and the scale is much smaller, one’s very involved right at the beginning, on looks and costumes and wigs, in a very hands-on way, or at least I am. In something like this, when the scale is just so huge and people have been working on it for years in advance, along with the scripts and designs, and so much information and research has gone on, by the time we arrive, so much of that creative work has been done and said. I always felt like my job is the script and the other actors, the relationships that go on, and the chemistry that happens between us, which is a very, very vast and complicated world, but is quite a simple set of boundaries to hold onto. That’s, in the end, always what I do.

STEVE TOUSSAINT: For me, and certainly for the character and his motivation, I just keep coming back to legacy and family. Those are his overriding things. Whatever he does, it’s about securing his family’s legacy. If he’s plotting about this and plotting about that, ultimately that’s why. Even if it’s ill-advised, his argument would be, “Well, it’s to take care of the family and secure the family.” He’ll listen to his wife, and his wife will say, “No, you shouldn’t do that.” But he’s like, “No, I should,” and he’ll do it. He could be wrong, and then he’ll go, “You were right, I shouldn’t have done that.” So, I think that’s his overriding thing. He wants to secure their place in history.

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Image via HBO

How dangerous is that, when everybody else is also doing that same thing?

BEST: It’s extremely dangerous.

TOUSSAINT: Yeah. In a world where even a word out of place can end up with you being killed, you have to be able to navigate a fine line between getting what you want, not showing your hand too much, and being respectful. In the first episode, my character is explaining an imminent danger to the small council, and they’re not really listening, and he’s really angry. There were scenes like that where I would have to say to Miguel [Sapochnik] or Ryan [Condal], “How far can I push this? Can I come in and do this?” And they’d say, “No, because then they’d cut your head off, so you can’t do that.” And I was like, “Okay, fine.” That was a constant thing, trying to make sure when your life is in the hands of someone who can do that and have you die. You’ve got to negotiate your own anger or frustration.

BEST: It’s learning how to be really, really good negotiators, which I’m not, as a person, at all, and really good politicians, which I’m not. I’m endlessly getting far too passionate, or far too involved or engaged. It’s about learning to be a really great poker player. It’s absolutely knowing how to very literally play the game of chess and being aware of all the moves. My character’s technique is partly a political astuteness, but also has to do with self-protection. She must remain with her hand incredibly close to her chest, and won’t ever display her cards until the very, very, very, very last moment, when she does. You have to remain a source of mystery to everyone else around you. That can be a way of maintaining your own power, when you feel it’s been stripped away from you.

There truly are dysfunctional families in every genre and every time period, but actions don’t always result in beheadings and there aren’t always dragons that can blow your face off.

TOUSSAINT: Right, exactly.

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Image via HBO

That has to influence the way you behave.

TOUSSAINT: Absolutely, when you put it like that. That’s true.

Are they a family where, once they get a taste of power, is it enough? Do they want more? Is there going to be a line that they draw for themselves? How ambitious are they?

TOUSSAINT: That’s really interesting. He is super ambitious.

BEST: I think she actually is also, because of what she’s been through. She wants not to be. Actually, her deepest desire would be to get the hell out, if she could, and just go live in Spain and drink cocktails, and bring up her family and have a nice, easy life. But she can’t do that.

TOUSSAINT: There is a moment in the series where she says something along the lines of, “We have enough money,” or something like that. His ambition is, “We should be the preeminent family, and so whatever I have to do to achieve that, I will do.” One way or another, he has to get burned before he takes a step back and looks at the bigger picture and thinks, “Well, actually, we’re doing okay. We’re the richest people here.”

BEST: It’s disingenuous to say that she’s not ambitious because of course she is. It’s a way of dealing with a frustrated ambition, where half of the self wants to just leave and kiss goodbye to the bullshit that surrounds you.

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Image via HBO

It’s the dragons and the beheadings that you have to worry about.

TOUSSAINT: Absolutely, yeah.

House of the Dragon airs on HBO on Sundays and is available to stream at HBO Max.

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