Emily Carey. Scott Garfitt/Invision/AP/Shutterstock
It’s not all glamour and glitz. House of Dragonstar Emily Carey wasn’t exactly excited to film sex scenes with her costar Paddy Considine — given their 30-year age difference.
Carey, now 19, opened up about the first scene she shot with Considine (now 49), during a recent interview with Newsweek.
“We have an intimacy coordinator who was amazing,” the London native told the outlet. “Again, still being 17, the first scene that I read from the show was my sex scene and my intimacy scenes, that includes the scene where I’m bathing the king — anything that felt intimate was considered an intimacy scene, which I thought was great.”
During the Sunday, September 11, episode of the HBO drama, fans watched Carey’s character, young Alicent Hightower, bathe Considine’s King Viserys Targaryen in a tub. Later, Alicent is seen lying motionless while her much-older husband has had sex with the woman.
“It scared me, because at that point I still hadn’t met Paddy, I didn’t know how much of a joy he was and how easy he was going to make [the scene]I was unable to see anything beyond a 47-year old man and me. [so] I was a bit concerned,” Carey explained. “And having that outlet of the intimacy coordinator, to be able to talk everything through and not be shunned, or not feel awkward, or not feel like, ‘Oh, this isn’t your job. I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable but can I ask you…’ It was never any of that, it was just that open dialogue.”
The actress was comfortable with the showrunners and her production team, even though she was thrown into some of the more intimate scenes. “[It was] a lot easier than I thought it was going to be,” she continued.
Fans of Game of Thrones — which comes from the same creators as the House of the Dragon — are used to graphic sex scenes and intense bloodshed, Carey had never seen the hit series before signing on for its spinoff.
“I’ve never seen Game of ThronesBefore, so in the preproduction period, I sat down and tried to watch [it]And of course, the first season, even the first episode of Thrones, there’s a lot of violence upon women,” the CasualtyAn alum stated. “There’s a lot of violent sexAnd it made me nervous. I was like, ‘Oh, God, what am I gonna have to do in this show?’”
Luckily, showrunners Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik assured Carey that the new series, which premiered in August, wouldn’t be as aggressive toward its female characters.
“There were a lot of women behind the scenes, we had an amazing team. We had female directors. I was fortunate to have worked with them. Clare Kilner who was fierce, and lots of women producing this show as well, and Sarah, one of our writers, amongst many others in the writers room, I’m sure,” she continued. “It was an amazing thing, and it was empowering being on that set as a young girl and being treated the same as all of these very established men. It was great, I think they approached this in the best way they could have done.”
House of the DragonIt is based on George R.R. Martin’s 2018 novel, Fire & Blood,It takes place hundreds of thousands of years before the events. Game of Thrones.
House of the DragonThe show airs on HBO Sundays 9 p.m. ET.
