RESOLVING THE LEDGER
This is one outlet's own report from The Hollywood Reporter — the article as it was filed. Other outlets are covering the same event; open the full story to compare every source side by side.
See the full story · 2 sources
Logo text [This story contains MAJOR spoilers from the House of the Dragon season three finale.]
Exiting the penultimate season of House of the Dragon , several season one alums who started the series are no long with us: Rhys Ifans as Otto Hightower, Harry Collett as Jacerys Targaryen , Fabien Frankel as Criston Cole , just to name a few. One original cast member, however, is very much still with us, even if it looked pretty touch-and-go for a while there: Corlys Velaryon, the Sea Snake, played with royal gravitas by Steve Toussaint. Related Stories TV Inside 'House of the Dragon' Season 3's Best Storyline: "It's a Bit Like a Boxing Ring" TV 'House of the Dragon' Star Shares the Bright Side of That Tragic Finale Twist
The Sea Snake started season three in the midst of the largest naval battle ever seen in the Game of Thrones universe. He survived that, despite a brief period where it appeared he'd been killed in action. Later, after Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy) refused to legitimize his bastard sons, Corlys publicly calls out the queen's hypocrisy with her own children, and somehow manages to keep his head on his shoulders. Later still, after waging a private war against the crown's defectors, Corlys ends up in the hands of the Hightowers in Tumbleton — and he survives that only by the good grace of Gwayne (Freddie Fox) exchanging Corlys to Daemon (Matt Smith) as a peace offering.
Alas, the peace does not hold even for a minute, as Daemon takes Corlys back as a prisoner, and embarks on a fiery campaign against Tumbleton. By the end of it, Daemon faces death's door, but is pulled away just in the nick of time by — you guessed it — the Sea Snake himself.
If that felt like a rollercoaster to ride, imagine living it. Better yet, imagine being Toussaint, one of the most stalwart cast members of the Game of Thrones prequel, inhabiting that ride. Below, the actor speaks with The Hollywood Reporter about all of that and more.
I have spoken to a lot of actors this season about their character's deaths . It's a nice change of pace to speak with an actor who still has some HOTD job security!
So far! ( Laughs .) You never know how long it's going to last. I kept getting stuff from friends and family and social media going, "Are you still alive? Do you live? Come and tell me." So it's nice that I can say that yes, for now, I'm still here. Who knows what tomorrow may bring. But for now, I'm still employed. They can't get rid of me that easy.
Corlys begins the season fighting for Rhaenyra's cause, and ends the season as a prisoner of that same cause. It's quite the journey for the Sea Snake.
It is. There have been so many different facets to him that we've had a chance to explore this season, particularly him showing humility and vulnerability with his son, Alyn. One of the big things, of course, is that he apologizes for his earlier actions to Alyn in that scene in episode one. The other thing that's consistent about him is, of course, taht Corlys is so steadfast in doing what he considers to be the right thing, no matter the personal cost. That's been fascinating about him.
Then at the same time — and this is from Corlys's point of view — when he then says to the queen, "Look, I've lost all of this stuff. I've lost my wife. I've lost my kids. I now have lost my home and much of my fleet. Could you at least legitimize my two sons?" She sort of goes, "Not just yet." There is a sense of righteous indignation on his part because I think for him, the only thing he can do is to try and put his sons in a position where they can better themselves, where carrying his name will help them.
So it has been fascinating to see how he's dealt with what he considers to be a betrayal by the realm. Of course, initially, he avoids King's Landing and goes off on this rampage mopping up dead pirates and trying to calm his rage. It was a really lovely journey and lovely to explore these different facets of this character.
You're at the heart of my favorite scene of the finale: the hostage negotiation between Daemon and Gwayne, with you as the bargaining chip. What was it like, inside the scene?
It was lovely. What was so good about it was you don't quite know where Corlys is going to come down. Several times when I read the scene through, and then when we rehearsed it, I said to both Andrij Parekh who directed the scene, and then to David Hancock, one of our execs, "What is it that Corlys has said here that's so bad?" Because when we were shooting it, Matt obviously plays the lines, but sometimes he likes to ad lib some stuff as well. He was just going wild with some of the insults he was throwing at me.
I don't know. ( Laughs .) I was like, well, I don't know what he said that's so bad, because it made sense to me! Corlys is at a point where he's seen so many battles, seen the futility of war, and there is actually no need for him to shed any more blood than is necessary. So it's unfortunate for him, of course, that he's up against Daemon who's like, "Oh no, everybody has to die." It was lovely. We had a lot of fun. I don't know how many times we actually shot that in the end, but the peaks and troughs of the scene were really lovely to play. They're two wonderful actors to work with anyway. So yeah, it was a lot of fun.
Were you disappointed to miss out on the big battle at the end of the season, or was the sea battle in the premiere hard enough work for you?
I was happy to take a break. The premiere battle was so tough. We must have shot something like three or four weeks, maybe longer, of the battle itself, which ends up being about 10 minutes. I was quite happy just to be watching the dragons flying over and then doing a bit of running and jumping [in the finale]. That was good for me. I wouldn't have minded cutting somebody up from the navel to the throat just to show that Corlys can! But no, I leave it to those guys to do that stuff.
What I saw when I watched the scene is what happens to Daemon after t...
AIPROPX is an independent multi-source news index — we track, compare, and connect coverage from across the web into one place you won't find anywhere else.