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entertainment

‘House of the Dragon’ Star Paddy Considine Reveals the Hardest Scene to Film: ‘It Was Very Emotional’

By: Karelle Mckay
Published: August 25, 2022

*Warning: Major spoilers ahead*

The premiere episode of HBO’s House of the Dragon brought it all: gore, violence and more gore. While yes, it was quite entertaining to watch, one of the show’s stars—Paddy Considine— is opening up about a particular scene that was downright “brutal” to film.

During a roundtable discussion with Insider, the 48-year-old actor recalled filming the scene with Queen Aemma (Sian Brooke) undergoing an emergency C-section, which resulted in her death. “Those were hard days filming,” he said. “It was tough to shoot. It’s all make-believe, but it was tough.

Ollie Upton/HBO

Considine continued, “It was very emotional. In fact, it was a lot more brutal and a lot more emotional than it ends up in the final episode. And I wasn't sure about that when I first saw it.”

The scene shows Aemma trying to give birth to her and King Viserys’s (Considine) child. Viserys is told that Aemma has a very slim chance of surviving the birth, but if they are to perform an emergency C-section, then the child has a great chance of living.

Ollie Upton/HBO

In the end, Viserys orders the doctors to perform the C-section and what ensues next is a gory, upsetting scene of the procedure being done on Aemma.

While the scene was challenging to film for Considine, the actor did praise his castmate Brooke for such an unforgettable performance. “We went for it, and there’s a lot of tears,” he said. “But props to Sian because she was going through the physicality of everything. It was a very physical bit of work from her.”

Ollie Upton/HBO

Just speaking as a viewer, we understand what you mean by “brutal”, Paddy.

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A Spoiler-Free Review of HBO’s ‘House of the Dragon’ Premiere: Violence, Drama & One Particularly Horrifying Scene

Karelle Mckay

Assistant Editor, News And Entertainment

Karelle McKay is the Assistant Editor of News and Entertainment at PureWow. Before she started writing about all things pop culture, she was a literal couch potato who loved...
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