‘He’s gonna have to evolve again, or otherwise risk being broken again.’

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for the end of season 2 of House of the Dragon.]

No one is sitting happily in the season 2 finale of House of the Dragon. Rhaenyra and Alicent have a fresh, uneasy alliance; Aegon is on the run with Larys; Daemon and Criston are preparing to face each other in battle; Otto is stuck in a dungeon somewhere. And yet few people have seen as meteoric a rise and tumble as Aemond, who across this season rose from prince to prince regent, seriously maimed his brother, and took out two dragons (with Vhagar’s help). Then he got blindsided by dragonseed, burned a town out of anger, and got dressed down by his sister.

Actor Ewan Mitchell says that getting to play these kinds of big, dramatic swings is what he’s always relished in his role as Aemond.

“I do think Aemond is — he has curated this exterior that is a little bit larger than life,” Mitchell said going into the season, at a roundtable interview with press. “The inspiration that I found in ’80s horror-movie icons — they’re just so interesting without saying a word; they move so slow in the spaces that they inhabit. […] And just that idea of inevitability, it’s quite scary. You know, when someone believes that much, as much as Aemond does.”

Technically, none of the bad things that happen to him in the finale particularly wound his station. But Aemond has always been a little softer under the tough cypher that makes up his exterior. Despite theoretically being one of the most powerful men in Westeros, Aemond feels vulnerable.

As the season finale approached, Mitchell talked to Polygon about Aemond’s pressure points, where the end of season 2 leaves him, and the things he’s looking forward to in season 3 — whether or not Helaena (Phia Saban) is right about Aemond.

[Ed. note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.]

Polygon: You’ve spoken before about the influences you took in when crafting your approach to Aemond — you have Prometheus; you have Heat; Halloween; Lawrence of Arabia. I’m curious what you were seeking as you were researching to play Aemond in season 2.

Ewan Mitchell: Characters who possess a tremendous amount of power, and see it as a means to do things no one else can do. Similar with Lawrence of Arabia — something in Lawrence of Arabia that I like, he says “The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.” You know, the idea that he kind of tempers himself — very similar to Aemond — to pain. He puts duty over love. And [similarly,] the idea that Aemond can be loved, but he also knows that he can achieve more if he’s willing to be feared, and do the necessary kind of evil. [I sought] characters who were kind of marginalized, and they maybe start off their story on their back foot, and over time become the hero of their story. There are setbacks, but they bounce back even stronger. Those kinds of characters.

Did you feel like you were lifting the energy of these performances, the philosophy, or just their physicality?

Anything — I mean, I try to watch a film a day. Although recently, with press, I’ve sometimes had to do two a day, because I miss a day. But anything, anything: Inspiration can come at any time. I’m always watching for it. I was watching Split the other day, M. Night Shyamalan’s Split, and it kind of raises the idea that the broken are the more evolved.

And that’s certainly true with Aemond; from the moment he had his eye taken from him, he’s used it as motivation to develop himself and manufacture himself into this lethal weapon. I was speaking to a reporter earlier, and he had a Rutger Hauer T-shirt from Blade Runner. That’s also something that I might use as inspiration going into season 3. Just kind of leave my arms open, take anything.

Photo: Ollie Upton/HBO

Do you find you have different influences for different moments in Aemond’s life, or even just different relationships, like Alicent versus Helaena?

Yeah, ultimately, after the raising of the dragonseeds in “The Red Sowing,” it’s definitely made Aemond a lot more desperate going into episode 8, and he’s losing that composure that he’s known for [in] the previous episodes. And so there was always something really fascinating in exploring that kind of fractured Aemond, seeing that scared boy rise to the surface again, that he’s tried to keep a lid on for so many years.

I love Phia’s performance in that — she’s so scary! When he goes to her and begs her to join him on dragonback and take Harrenhal and destroy Daemon and all the influence that he has over the Riverlands, and she rebukes him — she makes Aemond feel that small, and she’s so powerful in that moment as well.

It’s the sort of relationship that makes total sense even when you don’t see them together. Of course she’s the person who sees him and puts him in his place. And he just has nothing to say to that.

Her words just cut him in half. He always has this idea of where and how things will pan out. She just challenges that, and it breaks him a little bit.

In a show that’s so much about interrogating people’s quest for power, their relationship to it, and how it can be both wielded and corrupting as a force, how do you see Aemond fitting into that? What’s his mindset?

I think he raises that question of whether Aemond is inherently evil, or whether power does corrupt, whether it was nurture versus nature. Was it the upbringing that [he] received from Otto Hightower and his mother, or was it just being in the Red Keep and being a product of his environment there?

I think Aemond — he’s always had that quest for power. He’s always wanted to be known as that war hero. And here at the council table, for the first half of the series, he’s very much serving in the war from one end. And then when he gets into power and becomes prince regent, he goes to the other end. And all of these people, he now has a completely new perspective on, and it’s like, OK, so how can each of you serve me? And if you can’t serve me, you’re gone. It’s that kind of very black-and-white pursuit that Aemond has in his quest for power, which I think is quite scary. It’s formidable. It doesn’t really take anybody else’s perspective into account. “It’s what I want.” So what’s his relationship with power? It’s not a pretty one.

Do you see his quest for power as coming from that scared little boy who just wants some protection and insulation, and to be above reproach? Or do you see it as him thinking I honestly believe I can do this better than anyone else here?

I mean around the council table, all these other characters, they’re losing their composure, they’re raising their voices, they’re arguing. Aemond’s just sitting back. He’s calculated, he’s cool. He strikes when the moment arises.

I’m just going to get really cheesy now but: It’s like “With great power comes great responsibility.” He has the largest, baddest, oldest dragon in the known world. He needs to be seen as someone who can wield that power effectively. He needs to be seen as someone who can lead. He can become that war hero. Whether or not he wants to sit the Iron Throne — I don’t know; I don’t want to answer that! But he definitely wants a similar kind of reputation as Daemon Targaryen. He wants to be like Daemon Targaryen, but he also wants to better him. He wants to be known as that rogue prince, who you know all of the realm respects. Or maybe he doesn’t really care what anyone thinks — that’s kind of what I love about the character. He could be many things.

Tell me about how you approached the arc for him over the season — to return to influences for a sec, I was thinking a lot about Streetcar Named Desire, and having a character who doesn’t know they’re that close to a breakdown, basically, and doesn’t know they’re one bad day away from that. They’re just holding themselves together even when people around you can see This is bad news.

Aemond… if he has a breaking point, I don’t think he’s found it yet. It’s interesting. Maybe he found it there, when Helaena challenged everything he thought his life would amount to, and how things would pan out. I think Aemond always thought of himself as the captain of his own fate and his own destiny. And so when Helaena shares that knowledge — on one hand, it could make an enemy out of him. But on the other hand, it could also make Helaena a tremendously valuable ally. If you’re able to harness that kind of foresight and that power that Helaena possesses, you could see a blow coming before it lands.

I think that would certainly be something interesting to explore: Where is Aemond’s breaking point? I mean we’ve seen everything he’s done so far. He kind of had to abandon humanity in season 2, with what he did to his brother. Helaena raises that: Was it worth the price, and what did he lose in that moment?

How do you feel about where he ends up this season? In many ways, it feels like an otherwise triumphant season puts him in exactly the right place to have her pop that balloon for him.

Yeah, that’s a good way of looking at it. I think he’s got to sit with that information now, and sit with that realization. But as we know for Aemond, he can’t sit still for long. He’s going to be on the back of that dragon. Up to no good, you know. And yeah, I can’t wait to see where it goes in season 3.

I think he’s got to change again. I think similar to when he had his eye taken out as a kid, it served as this motivation to become something else entirely. And then with this new realization at the end of season 2, he’s gonna have to evolve again, or otherwise risk being broken again.