“Let Me Down!” Eve Best Talks About Filming Her Dragon Fight

The 52-year-old English actress didn't actually ride a winged creature but rather… a giant mechanical bull!

“It took me two whole weeks to film this one sequence.”

Without a doubt, the aerial battle that concluded episode 4 of season 2 of House of the Dragon was the most spectacular in the history of Game Of Thrones. But in reality, the filming was much less fun… Spoiler alert!

On screen, we see Princess Rhaenys, riding Meleys, fighting King Aegon II, on Sunfire, and especially Prince Aemond, on Vaghar's back. This three-way fight is visually very impressive. “But what we see on screen is really different from what was filmed”entrusts Eve Best at First.

The actress who plays Rhaenys tells us about the filming of the sequence, where she found herself alone in the studio for two weeks, in front of green screens:

“There's a lot of green screens, actually. Just green screens. And electronics around it. They strap you to some kind of mechanical bull, like you're riding a rodeo horse. Except it's about the size of a house! You have to climb all the way up, and then they take the ladder away and it starts moving. On the ground, there are people holding huge leaf blowers that blow air at you to simulate wind, alongside two huge propellers that look like jet engines…”

Eve Best explains above all not having even crossed paths Ewan Mitchell (Aemond) nor Ty Tennant (Aegon) during this somewhat unusual shoot: “We filmed the scene individually, each in our own corner. There was no Aegon or Aemond with me. They did their scene on their own too. So we end up playing all that in a vacuum. And they put a tennis ball at a distance which serves as a point to look at…”

The Dance of the Dragons of episode 4 was thus filmed for two weeks: “Day after day, we film little bits. The movements of the machine vary and become more pronounced. To the point that I told myself that I wasn't really made for this… At one point, I found myself upside down! I found myself stuck and I was shouting: Let me down please! I thought I was going to fall…”

Season 2 of House of the Dragon will continue next Monday on Max.