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Though he’s now a scene stealing star in “House of the Dragon”, there was once a point when Ewan Mitchell didn’t know if he’d ever make it as an actor.

The 27-year-old, who plays the one-eyed Aemond Targaryen on HBO’s hit series, said in a recent interview with the New York Times that he had to work hard to break into the industry.

As a child growing up in the U.K., Mitchell always knew he wanted to be an actor. But because his family couldn’t afford to send him to drama school, he instead worked “part-time at a restaurant and in customer service at a local soccer club” and attended vocational school to study design and technology.

While working and studying, he applied to The Television Workshop in Nottingham, but didn’t get in. His second try proved more successful and the experience in the drama group helped him score a part in 2015′s short film “Fire”.

With that film under his belt, Mitchell set out to find his place in the entertainment industry.

“By hook or by crook, I wanted to make sure that I was going to be in this business,” he told the Times.

Mitchell copied the film onto dozens of disks and set about trying to find representation.

“I got all the names of the agencies I knew of in London,” he he said in a Hero Magazine interview. “I went down on the train and posted them to all of the agents.”

Eventually, he got a call back.

In the years since, he has appeared in high profile projects like “Saltburn” and Netflix’s “The Last Kingdom”. Without formal drama school training, Mitchell looks at every project he gets as an “opportunity” to improve his process.

“Every job I do is an opportunity to hone it and try new things,” he said in the Hero interview. “I’m trying it on the fly and seeing what sticks, what doesn’t, mixing it up for different characters. And so far, so good.”