Kieran Bew is aware of the ability of excellent facial hair. He credit the search for Hugh Hammer’s success taming the large Vermithor in Home of the Dragon’s seventh episode of the season, “The Crimson Sowing.”
“I had an enormous beard, and everyone was discussing whether or not I ought to shave it off or not,” Bew says. “And I simply stated: I really like Vermithor’s design of his enamel, kind of wanting like they’re getting in all totally different instructions; like if he bit you, it will be essentially the most painful factor, nearly like being trapped in an Iron Maiden or one thing. And I felt prefer it was a barely humorous joke about individuals who have canine, find yourself wanting like their canine.”
Bew was conscious that Hugh’s entire season arc was main as much as his showdown with Vermithor, and conscious of what number of aesthetic selections have been there to arrange the depth of the choice to go to Dragonstone: He saved the beard, and his hair the identical shade as Daemon’s (if not Viserys’), with a little bit of Bew’s personal pure hue combined personal. And as he watched Hugh’s agitation with the ruling class of King’s Touchdown develop, Bew discovered the function in little beats, like being so determined for meals that he punches a fellow commoner to get a bag.
To him, the scenes have been “all the time like a skeleton” for the bigger character arc. However like several good actor (or, as is the case with deciphering lots of Fireplace & Blood’s textbook-like account, historian), it was his job to piece collectively the lived humanity between that.
“To get given a scene the place my character is revealing to his spouse one thing huge […] and he’s arguing to go on a suicide mission,” Bew marvels. “That’s how a lot he’s determined to maintain {that a} secret. Due to disgrace, due to how [his mom] behaved, due to his upbringing, due to how painful it was.
“He’s been attempting to do one thing else. And now he’s saying: Truly that is the one factor I can do. I’m in a lot ache; I’ve obtained to do one thing, I’ve obtained to do that.”
And so, Bew took all that vitality into that remaining scene of episode 7, the place Rhaenyra’s plans to search out Vermithor a rider go awry. To him, Hugh’s desperation — to do one thing, to matter — was close to suicidal, even when he’s nonetheless afraid within the second. “He’s come all this manner, the stakes are so excessive, he thinks the cube is barely loaded in his favor. But it surely’s nonetheless fucking terrifying,” Bew says. “How do you strategize in opposition to one thing that may transfer so shortly and squash you and drop individuals in your head on fireplace?”
After all, his delay had some upside. “The one factor about [it] going to shit is: the percentages enhance.”
For inspiration for what the final word second of connection ought to really feel like for Hugh and the Bronze Fury, Bew drew from his time on set — particularly, approaching a crew member’s little Yorkshire terrier on set, who saved attempting to go for the tennis ball eyes of pre-CG Vermithor.
“In the mean time of claiming, it must be this, the place this canine likes me, this canine is connecting to me,” Bew says, acknowledging there’s a distinction between a tiny terrier and a dragon the scale of 4 homes. “It’s a connection that’s, like, that delicate. However earlier than we get there, it’s overwhelming. And it’s terrifying. And it requires throwing the whole lot in.”
And in Bew’s thoughts, the whole lot about the way in which Hugh claims Vermithor comes from that desperation. Not like different dragons, Vermithor is searching for a rider who can, because the saying goes, match his freak. So it’s no shock that Hugh’s aggressive strategy spoke to the mighty dragon, on condition that nothing about the way in which Hugh claims Vermithor is selfless, in that regard — even stepping in because the dragon targets one other Targaryen bastard. In spite of everything, there’s nothing just like the concern of failure to show one thing inconceivable right into a race.
“He’s been pushed to this. One thing about rising up beneath the shadow of the aristocracy, the household that he has been rejected from that he’s not a part of — he’s not solely not a part of it, he’s linked to it in a approach that is stuffed with disgrace, that he’s indignant about,” Bew says. “If Vermithor chooses her, then what occurs to me?”
