Emily Carey as Young Alicent Hightower and Paddy Considine as King Viserys. Image Source: THR
WARNING: SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 4 ‘King of the Narrow Sea’
Emily Carey opens up about filming the sex scene in "House of Dragons".
The prequel to Game of Thrones, House of Dragons, has been the talk of the town since it premiered, with all the powerful actors putting out their best work to tell the saga of Fire and Blood.
Actress Emily Carey, who plays young Alicent Hightower on the show, recently opened up during an interview with Newsweek, about the sex scene she had to film with King Viserys, played by actor Paddy Considine, who is much older than her, in the fourth episode of the show ‘King of the Narrow Sea’.
Young Alicent Hightower played by Emily Carey had to appear in two personal sequences with her husband and King Viserys; the first took place as she bathed him in a tub, and the second had her lying immobile underneath him in bed while he had intercourse with her.
The actress, who was 17 at the time she read the script and 18 when she filmed the scene, recently shared in an interview with Newsweek that she was initially scared of performing intimate scenes with Paddy Considine, who was 47 years old at the time. Emily shared that they have an intimacy coordinator who helped her to be comfortable with it.
The teen actress said that her intimate scenes were the first thing she read from the show and even though she thought it was great, she was scared because she had not met Paddy Considine and had no idea how much of a joy he was and how easy he was going to make her feel during the filming of the scene, but at that moment when she read the script, she was worried and had her concerns.
Emily continued that the intimacy coordinator was someone she was able to talk the entire thing through. She said that the intimacy coordinator who made her feel not shunned or awkward or like this is not her job or something like she doesn't want to make it uncomfortable but she has questions rather than it was just that open dialogue. The actress said that her experience was much easier than she thought it was going to be.
Emily Carey, who is young Alicent Hightower, revealed during the interview that she had never seen Game of Thrones until she was signed and the show was in pre-production and said that she witnessed that there was a lot of violence upon women and violent sex and it made her nervous and she thought that she had to do that on the show.
But showrunners Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik assure the cast and crew of 'House of Dragons' that the prequel will be different from the original show. Emily said regardless of who was in whatever series, there was an open discussion about what the showrunners said to them look, this is how they are handling the program as they entered the practice space. The way it will differ from the original will be as follows adding that they mentioned that they would want to chat about this and this is what they intend to release. The showrunners want the viewers to perceive the women in their program in this way.
The actress went on to say that there were undoubtedly many women working behind the scenes and that they had a fantastic team with female directors. She had collaborated in the writer's room with many other women, including Sarah, one of the authors, as well as the brilliant and fiery Clare Kilner. The actress came to the conclusion that it was great and powerful to be a little girl on that set and receive the same treatment as all of these extremely successful guys. She felt it was fantastic and that they handled this situation as best they could have.
The actress went on to discuss the relationship between Alicent and her father Otto played by actor Rhys Ifans and said that she thought it might be one of the most intriguing dynamics for her to explore as an actor because she isn't close to her father and initially found it challenging to try and delve into that because it isn't a typical father-daughter relationship.
Emily said that Alicent is only a pawn in his father's grand scheme, but Miguel told her right away that she is acutely aware of Game of Thrones, as well as the environment she is in and where she fits inside it. The actress came to the conclusion that after hearing the showrunner, she believed Alicent began to realize that she had little choice but to accept her position as a player in this grand game. Finally, Emily said that she doesn't believe she ever imagined Otto would be the one controlling it.
House of the Dragon airs Sunday nights at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.
