Faithful to its parent series Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon has its share of sex scenes. Before meeting partner Paddy Considine, Emily Carey was “concerned” about their 30-year age difference.
Indeed, the 30-year age difference between the two on-screen spouses – King Viserys and Alicent Hightower – has been a real source of concern for the actress. House of the Dragon, Emily Carey.
The HBO star, who plays Alicent Hightower in the prequel series to Game Of Throneshas a sex scene with her husband King Viserys (Paddy Considine) in episode 4 of the series. Emily Carey was 17 when she read the script and 18 at the time of filming; and Paddy Considine, 48.
“This scared me because at that time I still hadn’t met Paddy, I didn’t know how happy he was and how much he was going to give back [la scène] easy. All I imagined is a 47-year-old man and me. I was a little worried“, confided the young woman to Newsweek.
“Still at 17, the first scene I read from the show was my sex scene and my intimacy scenes, including the scene where I bathe the king. Anything intimate was considered an intimate scene, which I thought was great.“
My God, what am I going to have to do in this series?
L'”unbelievable“Intimacy Coordinator on set made Emily Carey feel safe in every scene. The actress especially enjoyed”being able to count on her, being able to talk about everything and not feeling left out or uncomfortable.” On the contrary, “it was just an open dialogue“, said the actress.
She added that the experience was “much easier than I thought“, especially since she apprehended the “rough sexshown in Game of Thrones, which she only watched during House of the Dragon pre-production.
“The first season, if only the first episode of Game of Thrones, has a lot of violence against women“, says a pensive Emily Carey.”There’s a lot of rough sex and it made me nervous. I was like, ‘My God, what am I going to have to do on this show?’“.
© 2022 Home Box Office, Inc. All rights reserved.
Emily Carey in House of the Dragon
Another depiction in House of the Dragon
The House of the Dragon showrunners, Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochniktold the actors that the series was going to be “different from the original” and encouraged an open discussion on “how we want viewers to see the women in our series“.
“There were a lot of women behind the scenes, we had an amazing team“, added Emily Carey. “We had, of course, female directors, I worked with the incredible Clare Kilnerand many women producing this series as well, and Sarah Hessone of our screenwriters, among many others in the writers room.“
She continues: “It was amazing and it was empowering to be on this set as a young girl and to be treated the same as all these very established men. It was great, I think they approached it in the best way possible.“
Director Clare Kilner revealed in a featurette than the realization of intimate scenes like the one between Carey and Considine “can be really difficult“and that it is a”great responsibilityto film them properly.
“As a director, I grew up watching how male directors would direct sex scenes, and as a woman, I really have to think about how to film them, because my reference images are the ones with which I ‘ve grown up, which are not necessarily from the point of view of a woman“, Kilner explained of the male gaze. “Now we’re at a point where we’re like, ‘No, what’s the woman’s point of view here?’“
The scene to which Emily Carey refers is shown on screen at the same time as that between Rhaenyra and Daemon which shocked many viewers.