House of the Dragon is firing up for what is sure to be a climactic ending (if its predecessor Game of Thrones is anything to go by!) – with Season 4 confirmed to be its finale.
For those of you excited by the prospect of airborne battles, family feuds, and ruthless political ambition, you’ve got one last chance to get cast on the series. (If that sounds like a lot of pressure, fear not! There are multiple other Game of Thrones spin-off series in the works. One, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, has already landed.)
If you want to be part of the complex, gritty world created by George R. R. Martin – who authored the books that House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones are based on – read on to find out how to get cast.
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The epic HBO fantasy series is a prequel to Game of Thrones, which sees noble families battle to rule the Seven Kingdoms while a much greater threat looms. House of the Dragon, based on Martin’s book Fire & Blood, chronicles the events 200 years prior to that. It tells the story leading up to the decline of House Targaryen, which includes characters such as Rhaenyra (played as an adult by Emma D’Arcy) and her uncle/husband Daemon (played by Matt Smith).
According to fan site Winter Is Coming, Season 3 is set to be House of the Dragon’s “most thrilling season yet by quite a large margin,” with the Dance of the Dragons civil war anticipated to reach “some of its most brutal stretches,” with “beloved characters and dragons alike” to begin to die en masse.
Alongside D’Arcy and Smith, other established actors returning for the season include Olivia Cooke, Steve Toussaint, Ewan Mitchell, Tom Glynn-Carney, and Rhys Ifans. New additions include James Norton, Dan Fogler, and Tom Cullen.
All three series of House of the Dragon have been cast by Kate Rhodes James, who is also behind BBC series Line of Duty, Sherlock, and Bodyguard.
The casting process for many of the actors involved multiple self-tapes – so make sure you’re ready to record your own initial audition – and Zoom auditions for some (such as Milly Alcock in Season 1, according to an interview with James in Vanity Fair).
James said she originally became aware of D’Arcy through theatre (so you never know where one project may lead, and who is sitting in that audience).
“Rhaenyra needed to be someone who was unusual, fiercely intelligent,” James told Vanity Fair. “You’ve got to think about your audience, who are going to spend the next five years with this character, and you need an actor who is going to evolve.”
She revealed that she called D’Arcy into multiple auditions before House of the Dragon, and that they always “did something unique.”
“Emma would come on, and they would find elements that no one had even seen, let alone noticed, and it never felt like acting,” James said. “So I was, like, on a mission to find the right thing for them.”
The casting director advises actors to remember that they’ve made huge strides forward simply by being called into an audition. “We really want you to get the role, because then it makes us look great and we get the job done,” she told Backstage.
One of her biggest pieces of advice is for actors to “make a decision” about the character they are auditioning for in order to get the attention of the casting director.
She also advises actors to come into the room ready to work and with positive energy. “They shouldn’t complain about their children keeping them up all night or how they got stuck on a trip. What you’re doing is draining the energy in the room, and you’re also draining your time to do the scene,” she says. "My favourite actors are the ones who go, ‘Can we just do it?’”
Sharing further audition tips, James says actors should “read the whole script before [attending] an audition, not just the sections for the part [they’re] hoping to play. She also suggests influencing the casting director subliminally by dressing “in a way that suits the part,” without going over the top.
D’Arcy recalls a lengthy audition process. “It was about three months of self-taping in my living room in the middle of the pandemic,” they told Hollywood Reporter during a joint interview with co-star Cooke.
If there’s anything you can take away from D’Arcy’s audition experience, it’s to be as flexible as possible to meet what may be some unexpected demands of the audition. During the process, D’Arcy was asked if they had a white wig to emulate the Targaryens’ hair in a final audition tape.
“I had a bag of hair extensions from another job,” they recalled in an interview with the Guardian. “For 24 hours, my partner and I tried to hot-glue-gun hair to weird grips. We’d be like, ‘Yeah, we’ve nailed this!’ But I’d send a photo to Miguel Sapochnik [the show’s former co-director], who would very politely tell us we had not nailed it.”
Flexibility was also crucial to Cooke’s auditioning experience. She was originally asked to tape for Rhaenyra, but then was asked to read the sides for Alicent, which was the role she eventually landed.
Also be prepared to wait. No news can often be bad news, but sometimes it may be good news. “[The showrunners] were basically coaching me on how to get the job in my next tape, which was really, really lovely. And it felt good. But then they put me on hold for two weeks,” Cooke told the Hollywood Reporter. Two weeks turned into six weeks before she got a call from her agent.
To get cast on a show as high profile as House of the Dragon, it’s likely you’ll need to have built up a bit of a reputation. If you haven’t got an agent yet, perhaps work on that first or build up your acting CV. It’s worth keeping your options open and applying to any jobs that may boost your credits while you wait for the dream casting call.
Even if you’re well into your acting journey, “it’s never too late to start,” Harry Collett, who plays Jacaerys Velaryon on House of the Dragon, told L’Officiel.
“You can always try without putting it off, because you might repress a creative side that you’ve never realised before,” he says. “It’s worth taking the risk so you don’t have regrets.”
Collett encourages perseverance for those who are yet to have their big break, revealing to L’Officiel that he has previously been on the verge of giving up. “But you don’t have to,” he says. “You could be close to a situation that changes your career.”
To help you prepare to take your acting career to the next level, why not check out the following guides?