House of the Dragon: Matt Smith Comments on How Prequel Will Be Different from Game of Thrones

House of the Dragon is set to premiere on HBO Max soon and Matt Smith thinks that the prequel is going to be a bit different. The Doctor Who veteran sat down with CNET to talk about Last Night in Soho. During that conversation, his upcoming trip to Westeros came up and the actor believes that you have to do something different with this story. The only reason House of the Dragon exists is because of the runaway popularity of HBO’s series. But, Game of Thrones has been in the rearview mirror for some time now. The showrunners and other creative talent have to be wary of just rolling out old locations and characters to try and placate the audience. People will enjoy fan service in any form they can get it. But, House of Dragons will have to pave its own way if it wants to welcome that legion of fans back into the fold. With talent like Smith aboard, it’s not crazy to think that the goal could be within reach. Read what he had to say down below.

“We’re trying to make a show that’s entertaining on lots of different levels and has a similar scope and ambition to the previous show, in many respects,” Smith began. “But obviously, you’re never going to be able to re-create the success of Game of Thrones, because that was a very particular point in time. It was its own unique entity.”

With both Doctor Who and House of the Dragon, there are some big shoes to fill. Smith also gave his read on how to approach two different franchises that people still love so much.

“I suppose you bring yourself and your own spin on it,” he added. “It’s like to a certain degree, what does anyone bring to a Shakespeare play or something that’s been done before? You have to bring your own emotional makeup and your own identity and your own spin and take on things and, you know… throw some paint at the wall and see what sticks.”

Showrunner Miguel Sapochnik actually addressed a similar question during a recent sit-down with THR.

“That said, we can’t say, ‘Well, when we did Thrones, we did it this way …’” Sapochnik said. “If you start every sentence with that, you’ve lost. This is something else, and should be something else. It’s a different crew, different people, different tone. Hopefully, it will be seen as something else. But it will have to earn that — it won’t happen overnight. Hopefully, fans will enjoy it for the thing that it is. We’ll be lucky if we ever come close to what the original show was, so we’re just putting our heads down and getting on with it and hoping what we come up with is worthy of having a Game of Thrones title.”

Are you excited for House of Dragons? Let us know down in the comments!