Director Alan Taylor Season 2 ‘Condo of the Dragon’ Fight Interview

Nothing burns like betrayal. The long-awaited tangle of dragons and the strategic cunning of the Aristocracy ring thru in Condo of the Dragon Season 2, Episode 4. Titled “The Crimson Dragon and the Gold,” director and executive producer Alan Taylor helms The Fight at Rook’s Leisure, which finds Rhaenys (Eve Easiest) on the warpath to protect her household’s kingdom and claim to the Iron Throne. After Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) makes an sick-fated resolution to streak Sunfyre into the throngs of war, alongside his brother Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) and Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel), Rhaenys and her dragon Meleys dwell up sparing with the younger, incorrect ruler. That is till Aemond swoops in to place the day with Vhagar killing Rhaenys whereas also sneak attacking Sunfyre, main Aegon to plummet from the sky to sizable harm. It used to be a brutal episode that plot social media and fans on fire because the outcomes of the war without a raze in sight modified the scheming underbelly of King’s Touchdown.

Right here, Taylor speaks to Closing date about waging war between brothers, the growing demise toll, and the win 22 situation of developing the supreme dragon warfare.

DEADLINE: How long did this huge warfare episode deal with shut to film?

ALAN TAYLOR: I produce of rep a psychological block about how long we spend on filming things. Every episode is varied, and the agenda also reflects that. One of the vital bright things in regards to the approach we film Condo of the Dragon is that we block-shoot your entire season. It’s now not archaic in that one individual shoots their episode after which the subsequent individual is available in and shoots their episode. We’re all shooting our episodes the overall time. That’s why it’s laborious to assist music of what number of days we acquire. In particular for the warfare because you’re literally jumping internal and outdoors of sets, and other directors are coming in to your entire season. The principle week all 5 directors worked on something.

DEADLINE: You’re no stranger to directing Game of Thrones, however I would argue that this episode of Condo of the Dragon is one amongst your greatest challenges yet. What used to be your initial reaction to receiving the script for the episode, and how did you delineate what you had been going to provide?

TAYLOR: It’s repeatedly a identical project. You acquire the script and must figure out how you are going to produce it and be responsive to how it matches into the final image. This one used to be a bit discombobulated because we began off with 10 episodes. I was going to provide a determined warfare sequence on the dwell, after which things received reshuffled. We had been effectively into prep sooner than I was assigned this one. Vivid that the warfare used to be coming in Episode 4, in the course of the season, and shimmering that we needed to damage storylines that will doubtless well continue to develop over the direction of the season shaped how we approached that.

The excellent ingredient used to be that I was tracking the indisputable fact that this may perchance occasionally be the first time dragons had been deployed as a weapon, the first time they went to dragon war. For the direction of the first season and the beginning of the 2nd season the smartest of us in Westeros are saying it is miles a scandalous belief. So, we needed to assert on what it capability to deploy them. The metaphor I was carrying around used to be that this is the first time somebody decides to tumble a tactical nuclear weapon, and how will that commerce all individuals fervent? And the entirety grew out of that. That defined how we shaped the warfare itself. It defined how we adopted the warfare thru our characters, like Ser Criston Cole, who’s liable for this however shall be the most devastated by it. He’s a warrior who can never stumble on war the identical again after this. So, what you produce is figure out what the sizable solutions are after that are attempting and shape the entirety around it.

DEADLINE: Talking of a tactical weapon, that shot of Vhagar touchdown on the sphere is wild. She’s in actuality stomping around whereas all this gloomy smoke is in the abet of her. It looks to be like as if D-Day.

TAYLOR: Upright, just like the outlet to Saving Internal most Ryan. That sequence that (Steven) Spielberg did is inspirational for every filmmaker about how to grab the fog of war. I’m happy you picked up on that. When Vhagar slams into the ground, that’s the watershed 2nd, the nuclear blast for our episode. It knocks out our well-known character, our level of search for character, Cole. From that level on, it’s a determined world.

DEADLINE: What had been the other inspirations for this episode?

TAYLOR: The ingredient I savor about George R.R Martin’s writing is that it’s grounded truly and grounded in historical past. So, it’s delusion and the dragons, however it’s fully in step with the fact of things. So, when my accomplice and I had been designing the warfare sequence and the dragon fighting, we spent heaps of time having a search for at just a few things. One is the classy relationship between the characters and their dragons used to be something we desired to describe. We also appeared on the approach horse homeowners work alongside side their horses. When Aegon is greeting Sunfyre, that used to be lifted from how I’ve viewed horse homeowners work alongside side their horses.

More importantly, we appeared at heaps of documentary photos of birds of prey and how they engage and warfare. And so, we invented this 2nd that also makes Rhaenys seem very smooth where … Because we observed that birds of prey will produce this ingredient where if they feel they’re being encroached upon, they flip the wrong way up and they engage talon to talon. And so that they’re fighting in the air, however their talons are engaged, and they become this demise spiral down to the ground. So, it’s a game of chicken to quiz who’s going to release. And so, we stole that and outmoded that for the sizable climactic 2nd in Rook’s Leisure.

DEADLINE: Now, let’s discuss a actual demise spiral. I mediate we’re silent spiraling from the loss of Rhaenys.

TAYLOR: It’s humorous you bring that up because my profession has weirdly turned into this ingredient where I incessantly demolish of us’s favourite characters. In Game of Thrones, I killed Ned Stark. In The Sopranos, I killed Christopher Moltisanti. It goes on and on. Then, in a roundabout way, I received to raze Rhaenys and the dragon in this one. It’s repeatedly the identical viewers response, which I savor, that ingredient where of us acquire mad at their TV or HBO or with me. Then, on the identical time, they savor it and it’s incredibly thrilling for them. So, it’s a chic metaphor for the approach we handle our beget mortality, I mediate. Somebody we truly care about is death, however they’re fictional, so it produce of allows you to off the hook—a trial fade for dealing with demise in a fun approach.

DEADLINE: I’ll never enable you to off the hook for that one. However now, let’s discuss your aesthetics in the scene main up to her demise. She’s flying up above the fighting on the ground, and it’s smooth and practically silent excluding for the sound of the wind and the dragon wings flapping. Then there’s the occasional swell of this shapely music. Focus on this.

TAYLOR: I’m so happy you’re highlighting the light and the fraction. So, we’re up above the fray and destroy away it. There’s peace and sweetness, and we all desire lets doubtless be flying on dragons – doubtless. There’s light there, and later in her demise 2nd when she’s falling, releasing and letting jog. That’s a shapely ingredient that I’m happy we received to grab. However the win 22 situation it raised used to be, how produce you truly mix what’s occurring with the dragons and what’s occurring on the ground? That used to be one amongst the greatest challenges. It could doubtless well’t factual be an air repeat with visible effects. It has to feel like something we’re truly experiencing. All kinds of notion went into how we ground the dragons and join them to the ground. That’s allotment of the motive they withhold slamming into the ground.

Every camera angle on the dragon is a actual level-of-search for angle. There’s no magic cameras flying around. It’s both we’re gazing them literally from a character’s level of search for, or we’re gazing them from where a camera may perchance doubtless well doubtless be mounted. As an illustration, the cameras are mounted on the entrance of a dragon like a hood ornament. Again, going abet to the distinctive George R.R. Martin ingredient of looking out to deal with shut this fantastical stuff and form it grounded in our actual trip as grand as most likely.

DEADLINE: How many cameras are we talking about for a scale this huge? And what number of extras?

TAYLOR: We repeatedly rep two cameras on plot, incessantly three. And in a warfare, you have to doubtless well doubtless also simply rep doubtless four. Then there’s also a 2nd unit led by the intense Rowley (Irlam), the stunt coordinator on the repeat. He has two cameras going true thru the corner doing what he’s doing factual to gash into our photos. There’s heaps of cameras. For extras, I mediate we had 400 for certain days, after which there’s replication that we produce, so it looks to be like as if hundreds. Even when I received to the battlefield, I was amazed by what the repeat used to be in a neighborhood to position obtainable in the sphere. No longer factual the numbers of soldiers however separate liberties from varied homes. Ideal armor on the boys however also on the horses. So, it’s a full actual-world footprint, however you have to doubtless well doubtless also simply must lengthen it with technology.

DEADLINE: Reduction to Eve Easiest. Can you discuss working with her in these last days of shooting as Rhaenys?

TAYLOR: It used to be savory. I was now not allotment of season one. I had factual came in for season two. And also you’re assembly this array of actors who had been so impressive and who already know their characters, so it shall be produce of intimidating to approach abet in and presume to state them because they’ve already been doing it for a whereas. She used to be very excellent. She used to be very collaborative in the direction. And I mediate she may perchance doubtless well repeat we had been providing her a reasonably factual raze. I mediate she used to be happy with what she knew used to be occurring. I’d heard she used to be now not having fun on the dragons in season one, being on the dragon buck must you’re being bounced around like that. However she used to be factual a sizable trooper for our ingredient. I mediate we’d improved her armor a exiguous bit bit, and she or he factual knew it will doubtless be a sizable sendoff for her. She used to be savory. She spent hours on this dragon buck with a computerized camera following her around. She used to be most bright on the battlefield itself as soon as lying in the mud having a search for dreary. However other than that, most of her stuff used to be on our stage. I attempted to streak the dragon buck at one level, however they wouldn’t let me because they said insurance wouldn’t cloak it.

DEADLINE: How are you collaborating with showrunner Ryan Condal to acquire the episode’s imaginative and prescient true thru?

TAYLOR: He and his crew write the episodes, after which you approach in to shape it—especially something as sizable and complicated because the Episode 4 warfare. There had been things I needed to chat about by approach of developing definite it had that solid structure where it constructed up to hinder our nuclear match. Once Rhaenys dies that’s the emotional produce of conclusion of the ingredient. We talked about making definite there wasn’t too grand memoir to play on after that because I mediate our emotional ingredient crashes there.

Then there used to be the collaboration of bodily things and how to stage it. I selected Bourne Wood in England. Ridley Scott uses it in nearly all of his movies; I also shot Thor: The Shadowy World there. It’s a chic space because it gave us this tree line, a field, after which the castle that distress up shaping how we did the overall drama. Because I love the foundation that the soldiers are also hiding in the tree line. If you step out of the tree line, your dragon fodder and it’s a killing field. That used to be stuff that used to be now not so grand in the script because it received created as we chanced on the positioning and worked on it. He’s a factual collaborator. There’s a dialogue between the memoir and in actuality staging the ingredient. They check with one one more.

DEADLINE: One of the vital other surprising things used to be Aemond setting Aegon and his dragon on fire. You stumble on that for a destroy up 2nd, Aegon used to be happy to quiz his brother doubtlessly motivate him in warfare, then it flashes to dread so rapid when he realizes his brother is able to raze him. Aemond makes this sly smile. Focus on working with the actors on this.

TAYLOR: Since the characters are rich and layered, there’s some complexity and ambiguity. I needed to now not be fully slide about how grand Aemond intended to raze his brother. Piece of what’s occurring here is if his brother goes away, he ascends to the throne. That’s partly utilizing him. It’s also a tactical scamper; he’s blasting Meleys, Rhaenys, and his brother, who’s an idiot for being there and may perchance doubtless simply now not be there. So, he’s produce of that collateral harm. After I read the scripts, I didn’t know how very excellent his character used to be going to be till I started working with Tom Glynn-Carney, who plays Aegon. I mediate he’s doubtless my favourite actor in the repeat because he brings so grand innocence and humor to this dastardly man and mixes the 2 facets of his persona so effectively. It’s so understandable that he would must jog to this warfare because his mom said—in the worst parenting 2nd of all— “Factual produce nothing. I question nothing of you.” And so, it’s a shapely 2nd when he decides to jog off and repeat his heroism.

After which, unnecessary to command, by turning up, he factual screws the entirety up factual by being there. So, on his aspect, he’s apprehensive, in over his head, and looking out to be a hero. He sees his brother coming and, for a 2nd, thinks oh, thank God. After which he begins to heed what’s truly going down. So, all of that stuff is taking part in on Tom’s face as he goes from reduction, inhalation to dread. Then, the paradox tracks the overall approach thru. We stumble on him demolish into the woods, however most bright from a distance. When we uncover his body on the dwell—in further ambiguity—we rep now Aemond standing over him with the effectively-known knife, doubtless aspiring to raze him off. We’ll never know. We don’t repeat the convey of his body grand, we factual know he’s smoldering there. For the viewers and for the residents of King’s Touchdown, we don’t know if he’s dreary or now not for a whereas used to be the draw there.

DEADLINE: Even in that 2nd when we stumble on Aemond with the knife, like you said, it’s so ambiguous. He’s taking part in with the knife, we surprise if he is going to raze the job by killing his incapacitated brother, however then Ser Criston Cole is available in and doubtlessly stops Aemond from killing him. Even the level that Ewan Mitchell makes with the indolent flick of the wrist is bright.

TAYLOR: We had been looking out to withhold ambiguity there. When Cole finds him he … I needed him to be brandishing his sword in a approach that will doubtless well doubtless be threatening or may perchance doubtless well doubtless be him striking his sword away because we didn’t reasonably know how to read what used to be factual going down. Cole enters the scene now not shimmering what used to be about to happen. Did I factual dwell regicide or am I being paranoid about this? How grand can I belief this man? In order that he puts his sword away after which finds the dagger that tracks thru all of Game of Thrones and is the dagger that kills a truly effectively-known character later. He’s factual fiddling with it. I love the indisputable fact that he outmoded that to show his brother. However it completely’s all factual intended to be factual to Aemond’s conflicted character. He does doubtless savor his brother, however he also would motivate by his demise. And he also has contempt for him for now not being the chief that he is conscious of he may perchance doubtless well doubtless be.

(This interview has been edited for dimension and clarity.)