House of the Dragon’s Ewan Mitchell is channeling Tony Soprano and Robert De Niro
Black Team finally take off. To the end House of the Dragon Season 2, Episode 6, “The Little People,” Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) participated in the war, hop on her dragon, Syraxto search for the mysterious dragon rider who tamed Seasmoke. On the Blue Team’s side, things get even more chaotic when Prince Regent Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) took on even greater strength, kicking his mother, Queen Alicent (Olivia Cooke), out of the senior council.
In a new episode of Still watching, Mitchell talks about finding the darkness within Aemond—and how evil he thinks the one-eyed prince really is. “On a scale of one to ten? He’s right there,” Mitchell admits. “I think he’s probably a nine in a lot of people’s eyes. But in his eyes, he’s a one. He doesn’t think anything he does is bad. It’s all justified.”
Vanity Fair: Can you tell us a little about how Aemond justified his actions?
Ewan Mitchell: Aemond had never really felt unconditional love growing up. He was the spare son, though he felt he should have been treated like the eldest. The spare son’s duty was to fight in wars and do necessary evil, so to speak. He had been neglected a lot as a child. He was bullied relentlessly by his nephews, his older brother acting as their ringleader. So Aemond was desperate to find his place in the world. The problem was, if a child was not accepted by the village, they would burn it down to feel its warmth. And so Aemond, with this newfound power he had with Vhagar, would now seek validation and eventually attention through other means—through war.
Do you feel Aemond made a wise decision in removing Alicent from the council?
Yeah, that was tactical. I always played with different motivations for him, one of which was that he wanted his mother. He felt like he had to be a war hero and end this war, so he could finally have time with his mother. Every time I did a scene with Olivia Cooke, I always pictured Aemond and Alicent sitting on a Dornish beach, just sipping piña coladas. Away from the war. He could finally have that time with his mother that he’d always wanted, that he’d never really had.
He had to forge himself into this weapon and craft himself into something deadly so that he would never be seen as weak again. It was like Michael Mann‘S Heat. There is a quote in there that says Robert De Niro says, “Never get involved with someone you wouldn’t be willing to walk away from within 30 seconds when you feel the pressure coming on.” That’s the principle his character follows.
Aemond had a similar code that served him well. It was why he could so easily abandon his mistress: Love was the weakness in his world. Alicent defied that code—in fact, she was his weakness. With the people you love most and the people you want most, you often have to push them out of the way to get what you want. Like a kid on the playground bullying his crush. He just didn’t want his mother to go to work. He wanted to do the job at hand, and his mother couldn’t stand in his way.
