“I love Matt and working with him, and we challenged him quite a bit this year.”
Ryan Condal, showrunner of House of the Dragon, has revealed a “warning” he gave to Matt Smith before he reprised his role as Daemon Targaryen for season 2.
Fans of the book will know Daemon has some huge moments ahead of him, with Condal admitting he didn’t hold back on challenging Smith as an actor.
He exclusively told RadioTimes.com: “I love Matt and working with him, and we challenged him quite a bit this year.
“I warned him early on, ‘You did such a great job in season 1, now we’re gonna throw a lot at you and really challenge your range as an actor, and also what makes Daemon as a character.’
“I think Damon is the character a lot of people hook into with this series, because it’s the sort of stereotypical heroic male lead. And we wanted to kind of turn that on its ear, beginning with episode 1 of season 1 and carrying all the way through the rest of his arc through the series.”
He continued: “And we really want[ed] to put Daemon through a character challenge this season – challenge expectations for him and for the way people see Daemon, for all the complexities that went through in season 1.
“So I mean, without saying anything about the story, because I think people should experience it live on television for the first time as pure a way as possible, it’s the thing that I think we’re most proud of this season, because it’s very unexpected.
“And it’s very challenging to Daemon. I think it puts Daemon through paces that we have not seen before and challenges him as a character and you’re thus going to see different sides of him. And where it brings him to in the end, I think is a really interesting place.”
Smith has previously said of Daemon’s journey in season 2: “We definitely meet Daemon at a point of crisis in this situation, and in many ways, it’s a different version of him. It’s one that’s much weaker.”
He added to Variety: “You never really know which way he’s going to go. I always viewed him as an agent of chaos.”
Just which way that chaos is going to take him, fans will find out very soon.