Even though the WGA strike is moving forward at full speed and several TV series have already announced that production is halted until an agreement for fair wages is reached, one of the shows that won’t be affected by the strike (at least for the time being) is HBO’s House of the Dragon. The Game of Thrones prequel had already started filming, and the scripts for the full season had already been completed long before the strike kicked off.
As filming progresses, we’ll get regular updates from the epic series over the next months, and some of them have already surfaced, courtesy of a Collider interview with series director Clare Kilner (Snowpiercer). She revealed, in an interview with Therese Lacson, that five different directors have been hired to helm the eight episodes from Season 2. However, she didn’t disclose the other four directors’ names. Kilner also broke down how her shooting schedule will play out over the next few months:
“I shot a few days in the last couple of weeks, and then actually tomorrow I’m diving full in until September. Yeah, I’m doing Episodes 2 and 5, really interesting episodes. It’s really difficult to talk about because I’m worried I’m gonna give it away, but it’s great. It’s really wonderful, having done three episodes prior, to come into something which is like such a family. I know the actors, have this rapport with them, you know, it’s just, it’s really exciting. I’m always nervous before new jobs even if I know everybody, but I love it.”
Kilner Is a Veteran in Westeros
In the massively popular Season 1 of House of the Dragon, Kilner directed three out of the ten episodes: “King of the Narrow Sea,” “We Light the Way,” and “The Green Council.” Considering what she’s had to handle as a director – a much-discussed incest scene in Episode 4 and a chaotic wedding in Episode 9 — it’s safe to say that Kilner is a veteran in that world. So, when she refers to her two episodes as “really interesting,” you just know you can expect some turning points to come up in the upcoming Episodes 2 and 5 of Season 2.
House of the Dragon premiered in August 2022 to excellent ratings – reached, of course, because fans of Game of Thrones were eager to return to Westeros. The series takes place two centuries before the events of the flagship series and centers around House Targaryen’s struggles to keep sitting on the Iron Throne and ruling the Seven Kingdoms. For Season 2, Matt Smith, Graham McTavish, Eve Best, Steve Touissant, Emma D’Arcy, Olivia Cooke, and Rhys Ifans are all set to reprise their roles. The new season is only expected to debut in 2024.