Kieran Bew is aware of the energy of good facial hair. He credit the look for Hugh Hammer’s success taming the large Vermithor in House of the Dragon’s seventh episode of the season, “The Red Sowing.”
“I had a big beard, and everybody was discussing whether I should shave it off or not,” Bew says. “And I just said: I love Vermithor’s design of his teeth, sort of looking like they’re going in all different directions; like if he bit you, it would be the most painful thing, almost like being trapped in an Iron Maiden or something. And I felt like it was a slightly funny joke about people who have dogs, end up looking like their dogs.”
Bew was conscious that Hugh’s complete season arc was main up to his showdown with Vermithor, and conscious of what number of aesthetic selections have been there to arrange the depth of the choice to go to Dragonstone: He stored the beard, and his hair the similar shade as Daemon’s (if not Viserys’), with a bit of Bew’s personal pure hue combined personal. And as he watched Hugh’s agitation with the ruling class of King’s Touchdown develop, Bew discovered the position in little beats, like being so determined for meals that he punches a fellow commoner to get a bag.
To him, the scenes have been “always like a skeleton” for the bigger character arc. However like any good actor (or, as is the case with decoding loads of Fireplace & Blood’s textbook-like account, historian), it was his job to piece collectively the lived humanity between that.
“To get given a scene where my character is revealing to his wife something enormous […] and he’s arguing to go on a suicide mission,” Bew marvels. “That’s how a lot he’s determined to preserve {that a} secret. As a result of of disgrace, as a result of of how [his mom] behaved, as a result of of his upbringing, as a result of of how painful it was.
“He’s been trying to do something else. And now he’s saying: Actually this is the only thing I can do. I’m in so much pain; I’ve got to do something, I’ve got to do this.”
And so, Bew took all that power into that closing scene of episode 7, the place Rhaenyra’s plans to discover Vermithor a rider go awry. To him, Hugh’s desperation — to do one thing, to matter — was close to suicidal, even when he’s nonetheless afraid in the second. “He’s come all this way, the stakes are so high, he thinks the dice is slightly loaded in his favor. But it’s still fucking terrifying,” Bew says. “How do you strategize against something that can move so quickly and squash you and drop people on your head on fire?”
In fact, his delay had some upside. “The one thing about [it] going to shit is: the odds improve.”
For inspiration for what the final second of connection ought to really feel like for Hugh and the Bronze Fury, Bew drew from his time on set — particularly, approaching a crew member’s little Yorkshire terrier on set, who stored attempting to go for the tennis ball eyes of pre-CG Vermithor.
“At the moment of claiming, it has to be this, where this dog likes me, this dog is connecting to me,” Bew says, acknowledging there’s a distinction between a tiny terrier and a dragon the dimension of 4 homes. “It’s a connection that’s, like, that delicate. But before we get there, it’s overwhelming. And it’s terrifying. And it requires throwing everything in.”
And in Bew’s thoughts, every thing about the method Hugh claims Vermithor comes from that desperation. Not like different dragons, Vermithor is in search of a rider who can, as the saying goes, match his freak. So it’s no shock that Hugh’s aggressive strategy spoke to the mighty dragon, provided that nothing about the method Hugh claims Vermithor is selfless, in that regard — even stepping in as the dragon targets one other Targaryen bastard. In spite of everything, there’s nothing like the worry of failure to flip one thing inconceivable right into a race.
“He’s been pushed to this. Something about growing up underneath the shadow of the aristocracy, the family that he has been rejected from that he’s not part of — he’s not only not part of it, he’s connected to it in a way that is full of shame, that he’s angry about,” Bew says. “If Vermithor chooses her, then what happens to me?”
