During a new interview with IndieWire, House of the Dragon director Geeta Vasant Patel discussed the tumultuous history of Rhaenyra and Alicent’s strained relationship. In her own words, “I always thought about the metaphor for it as two lovers that have been divorced and still love each other. Part of it is that they both want to be with each other in a way they can’t understand and can’t explain–it’s like first love.”
As she confirms in the article, the character’s shared chemistry has been largely subtextual. “For example, first season, I was told that the entire Episode 8 was about Rhaenyra and Alicent’s relationship and how they miss each other. Okay, is that on the page anywhere? No, not once is it on the page. In fact, it’s almost the opposite the whole way through, they constantly bicker. So I had to figure out, with Katie [Goldschmidt, House of the Dragon cinematographer]how to make it palpable that they miss each other. There’s certain ways, through cinematic devices, framing, structure, transitions, we moved scenes.
Patel reveals she took visual inspiration from cloak and dagger spy movies to convey Rhaenyra and Alicent’s first surreptitious meeting earlier this season.
“In Episode 3, Rhaenyra sneaks into King’s Landing to talk to Alicent. On the page it was about three lines. Ryan [Condal, House of the Dragon showrunner] came to me and said, ‘Hey, I really want this to be suspenseful. I don’t want it to just be walking in, having a conversation.’ I had to sit down with Katie and the production team to figure out how, in the small time we had, we could make it more like in Mission: Impossiblewhere she’s trying to sneak in, there’s a near miss–all of the things that Ryan wanted, we just had to figure out visually how to pump it all up and give him choices in edit,” Patel said. “So what was three lines on the page was an entire day of shooting, where you had Emma and Olivia near missing each other. One’s up on the stairs, one’s behind. It was this grand structure. A film that really inspired me for that moment, was The Conversationwhere there’s a big, wide overhead shot of the courtyard and you see this whole thing playing out, and it just gives it scope.”
In this way, Patel made sure everything was perfect to reflect the same in the character’s tense second meeting in the season finale. “We were constantly looking at the two of them. You know when you get your hair cut and they make sure both sides match ? It’s kind of like that. We kept weighing both of them and just making sure that the shift was strong and that there was a mirroring, there was a cause and effect. All the strengths of storytelling were there between the two scenes, and then Ryan and Sara [Hess, executive producer and writer] were constantly tweaking little moments, either in letting me know what they were feeling for behavior or blocking, or having conversations with the actors,” Patel said.
“A lot of attention was put on those two scenes, knowing that they were tentpoles for the season in a way of that relationship. Those are the two times you see the two of them together… Katie and I sat down and blocked everything Episode 3 to match what Greg Yaitanes did in Season 1 when they were young women. We added some flourish for the scene itself in Episode 3 to make it distinct in other ways, with some of the wide shots. We of course leaned into the knife moment, which was something they didn’t have when they were kids, so there were a few things that were different, but yes, we wanted to make it almost like deja vu.”
Patel also praised Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke’s choices as performers to convey the unspoken anguish between them, reflecting on both Mily Alcock and Emily Carey’s roles in season one as the younger Rhaenyra and Alicent.
“I think what was so beautiful about this scene is it’s relatable to all of us in that when you see someone that you have had a very long relationship with and a fraught relationship with, like a sister or brother or a lover, and that relationship started when you were younger–when you see them, you immediately revert to whatever age that was, and you’re allowed to be childish. Even if you’re President of the United States, you are immediately a 15-year-old. The way that the two of them portrayed that quality gave away the most emotionally,” Patel added.
“You saw Rhaenyra’s face contort in a way that we don’t normally see. The was making these faces and these gestures and saying things that were quite juvenile. Alicent was incredibly emotional, but also became the child she used to be. It was such a great choice that Olivia bit her nails. We all know that quality hadn’t come out in a long time, and I think it was a choice on her part not to bite her nails through many episodes of the season in order to make sure that when she did, it was a time when she absolutely had to go back and was feeling like a child.”
Possibly in part to last year’s writer’s strike, the production arm of House of Dragon were left to parse much of the series’ framing and character details to themselves rather than any further alterations to the delivered scripts–a dilemma that, as seen in the past, doesn’t always lead to subtle and restrained choices. Patel, however, understood the assignment. “I felt a great sense of responsibility. I felt quite honored to be able to those two scenes. I felt a responsibility to Emma and Olivia, Ryan and Sara, who had entrusted me to shepherd the shooting of it, and took it very seriously.”
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