House of the Dragon Star Describes Filming "Gnarly" Brothel Scene

The fourth episode of House of the Dragon, "King of the Narrow Sea," was released on Sunday and it featured Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) taking his niece Rhaenyra Targaryen (Milly Alcock) on a tour of King's Landing. Things took quite a turn when they ended up in a pleasure house and engaged in some steamy activities that are quite questionable for a couple of relatives. During a recent interview with the New York Post, Alcock talked about filming the "gnarly" brothel scene. 

"No, strangely enough. [Matt Smith and I] were just kind of mates," Alcock explained when asked if filming the scene was awkward. "So, it was quite comfortable ... We had an intimacy coordinator, and we worked with her through the rehearsal process and blocked it out months before." She added, "Clare Kilner, our director, made sure that we hadn't seen any of the brothel stuff until we were shooting ... So, that was our first time walking through the brothel, and he's guiding her through the room with all of these other bodies. So, that was quite shocking. You're like, 'This is kind of weird and silly.'"

Alcock added, "There were extras who we had just met who were like, 69-ing for 12 hours ... It's pretty gnarly. We felt pretty overdressed because everyone else was nude." She explained, "Rhaenyra is at an age where she can't tell the difference between platonic love, romantic love, and lust because she hasn't lived long enough and gone through those experiences ... I think that she understands that there's a feeling here [with Daemon], but she's not quite sure where it lands, and how to behave with it and navigate it."

The scene between Daemon and Rhaenyra wasn't the only sexual encounter in "King of the Narrow Sea." There was also an uncomfortable sex scene between Queen Alicent (Emily Carey) and King Viserys (Paddy Considine). During a recent interview with Newsweek, Carey talked about feeling nervous about doing a sex scene with someone 30 years older.

"We have an intimacy coordinator who was amazing," Carey explained "Again, still being 17, the first scene that I read from the show was my sex scene and my intimacy scenes, that includes the scene where I'm bathing the king-anything that felt intimate was considered an intimacy scene, which I thought was great." They added, "But, it scared me because at that point I still hadn't met Paddy, I didn't know how much of a joy he was and how easy he was going to make [the scene], and all I saw was, you know, a 47-year-old man and me, I was a bit concerned."

House of the Dragon's fifth episode will be available to watch on HBO on Sunday.