'It's Intensely Annoying': House of the Dragon Stars Tease Rhaenys & Corlys' Season 2 Conflict (2024)

Although they aren't fighting for their own seat on the Iron Throne, Rhaenys Targaryen and Corlys Velaryon still have a stake in the Targaryen civil war on House of the Dragon. The power couple have lost both of their children and their grandson, Lucerys Velaryon. Rhaenys and Corlys are going into the war with grief shadowing over them, and carrying some secrets that arise from their past.

Rhaenys is well-equipped to guide Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen in the right direction -- whether on dragonback or on the small council. Corlys, meanwhile, commands the largest fleet of ships in Westeros, which'll give Team Black an edge over Team Green. In an interview with CBR, actors Steve Toussaint and Eve Best discussed the effect war will have on the couple's longstanding relationship during House of the Dragon Season 2 and the potential The Sea Snake spinoff.

In Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, war can either strengthen a relationship or make it crumble. Corlys and Rhaenys' relationship is the healthiest by far in a show full of abusive and incestuous pairings, but will it stay that way in Season 2? CBR asked Toussaint and Best what their characters should do in order to strengthen their relationship in the face of peril.

Eve Best: What I want to say to Rhaenys is show your vulnerability. She's so indomitable and strong, and she's so good at keeping her cool that actually she never lets [Corlys] know to what extent she's hurting. Her heart is broken. I wanted to say to her, 'Let [Corlys] see how much pain you're in. You don't have to hold everything together. You don't have to do all the work. This is a two-way thing.' I would say communication is key and allowing yourself to be vulnerable. Those are my two pieces of advice.

Steve Toussaint: My [advice for Corlys] would be pay attention to your wife. Sometimes, your partner may not say something overtly but you can tell by the way they behave. He's a bit like me in [that] sense. I've grown over the years to pay attention to behavior just as much as the spoken word... [but] I think that's very much like a lot of men. We're pathetic.

Best: Talk to each other. Things come up in Season 2 that aren't actually war-related, that severely test this bond. Rhaenys has been irritated with Corlys. [She is] somebody who wants to talk and deal with the elephant in the room, and [he is] somebody who doesn't want to talk and wants to just shove everything under the carpet. It's intensely annoying.

Both actors were very careful not to reveal the source of the couple's problems in Season 2, but it may have something to do with two newcomers, Addam (Clinton Liberty) and Alyn of Hull (played by Abubakar Salim). The smallfolk brothers work on one of Corlys' ships in preparation for war, often running into Corlys and Rhaenys on the job in awkward interactions.

Toussaint: What can I tell you without [HBO] dragging me away and beating me up in a small room? [Laughs] I can tell you that Alyn is very much his own man. He's a self-man man. He doesn't need help from anybody. That's very much what Corlys was like when he was younger. [Corlys] recognizes that spirit in [Alyn]... so he admires that about [Alyn] and it'll play a role in their interactions.

As for Addam, Toussaint confirmed that Corlys doesn't have much to do with him initially, and Best added that she didn't have any scenes with Liberty in Season 2. The lack of interaction is a pattern in House of the Dragon, when everybody is fighting their own battles. But Toussaint took time to point out Liberty's similarities to the character he plays.

Toussaint: Corlys has less to do with Addam until much later in the season. Addam, very much like Clinton [Liberty] who plays him, is a very sweet and innocent soul. Those who come into contact with him can't help but be enamored of him. That is as much as I can tell you, I'm afraid.

Corlys and Rhaenys' relationship might be tested in House of the Dragon Season 2, but it's their losses that bond them together. Nobody has lost more than they have after their children's deaths early in Season 1, and Lucerys' murder in the Season 1 finale. Toussaint believed that a trip out to the sea will light Corlys' fire again, simultaneously teasing a possible battle sequence on the water.

Toussaint: There's that old saying that a leopard doesn't change its spots. I don't know if you can heal from the death of somebody, but as you get used to that dull ache, who you are starts to re-emerge. Certainly for him, I think the fire will re-emerge. I don't know, you might speak to [showrunner] Ryan [Condal] and he might say it doesn't. But the minute [Corlys] is back at sea and in the fray, the old Corlys will come back, even if it is just for the battle.

Best disagrees that her character will find her fire again. Rhaenys is too busy "holding so much for everybody else," and is directly involved in the plans to take back Rhaenyra's birthright in Season 2, putting her in the thick of plotting for a throne that once belonged to her. It's possible that some feelings of regret emerge across the season for Rhaenys, known as the Queen Who Never Was.

Best: [Rhaenys] is holding so much of her own grief and holding so much for everybody else. She said several times that [she] let go of [her] ambitions ages ago and that it's not important to [her] anymore. I feel like an element of that was true, but also deep down, there was always that fire running through, that desire [to be queen]... This season, it felt very much like the opposite. She was just letting go of attachments to everything, and things mattered less and less. She just needed to make sure that nuclear war was averted at all costs, and that everybody was okay. But honestly, she just wanted to get rid of the whole lot of them and just have a bath. [Laughs]

Toussaint: Do you think Rhaenys regrets the speech she made to Corlys about joining the Blacks [at the end of Season 1]?

Best: There's a conscientious side of her [that says], 'Not on my watch, yet again, shall a woman be passed over, and a woman be treated with the lack of respect and honor that happened to me.' But I think on a sort of personal level, I think she wishes that she'd listened to him.

Toussaint also flirted with the possibility of returning as Corlys in animated form in The Sea Snake, a spinoff that's currently in development at HBO.

Toussaint: I would gladly do that. The last time I saw [Game of Thrones] creator George R. R. Martin was a couple of years ago, and he was the one that told me that they were now thinking about doing it as an animation. People had, prior to that, said to me, they're doing a series about [my] character. I would often say, 'I'd love to do that.' It'll be his younger days and I can no longer play a 21-year-old, not feasibly anyway. And then Martin said, 'No, it's animation.' But that's the last I've heard of it. It's above my pay grade whether it's being developed, or whether I'm even in the frame of it being developed.

Best: Does Rhaenys come along?

Toussaint: Well, yeah. Part of [the voyages] is about her, isn't it? I hope that she gets in somewhere. A lot of the time, men do these things for the chicks.

House of the Dragon Season 2 premieres June 16 at 9:00 p.m. on HBO.

House of the Dragon

TV-MA

Drama

Action

Adventure

Fantasy

Two centuries before the events ofA Game of Thrones,House Targaryen—the only family of dragonlords to survive the Doom of Valyria—took up residence on Dragonstone.

Release Date

August 21, 2022

Cast

Jefferson Hall , Eve Best , David Horovitch , Paddy Considine , Ryan Corr , Bill Paterson , Fabien Frankel , Graham McTavish , Olivia Cooke , Gavin Spokes , Sonoya Mizuno , Steve Toussaint , Matt Smith , Matthew Needham , Rhys Ifans , Emma D'Arcy , Milly Alco*ck

Main Genre

Drama

Website

https://www.hbo.com/house-of-the-dragon

Franchise

Game of Thrones

Characters By

George R. R. Martin

Cinematographer

Alejandro Martinez, Catherine Goldschmidt, Pepe Avila del Pino, Fabian Wagner

Creator

George R. R. Martin, Ryan J. Condal

Distributor

Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution

Filming Locations

Spain, England, Portugal, California

Main Characters

Queen Alicent Hightower, Ser Harrold Westerling, Lord Corlys Velaryon, Grand Maester Mellos, Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, Ser Criston Cole, Lord Lyonel Strong, Ser Otto Hightower, Lord Jason Lannister/Ser Tyland Lannister, King Viserys I Targaryen, Mysaria, Lord Lyman Beesbur, Prince Daemon Targaryen, Ser Harwin Strong, Princess Rhaenys Velaryon, Larys Strong

Production Company

Bastard Sword, Cross Plains Productions, Warner Bros. Pictures, HBO

Sequel

Game of Thrones

Sfx Supervisor

Michael Dawson

Story By

George R. R. Martin

Number of Episodes

10

Network

HBO Max

Streaming Service(s)

Max