House of the Dragon cast pressed with awkward coffee cup question at Comic-Con

The House of the Dragon cast hosted their debut panel at Comic-Con, and all was going smoothly until questions opened up to the public.

#CoffeeCupGate 2.0?

After the infamous editing fail in Game of Thrones’ final season, which saw a Starbucks cup left in a scene amid a Winterfell setting, the cast of the upcoming prequel have been sprung with a rather awkward question about the gaffe.

The stars of HBO’s upcoming House of the Dragon, which premieres on Binge and Foxtel on August 22, appeared together publicly for the first time at Comic-Con in San Diego, California on Saturday, local time.

Australian actress Milly Alcock made her debut at the fan event, alongside co-stars Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy, Paddy Considine, Eve Best, Fabien Frankel, Steve Toussaint, screenwriter Ryan Condal and GoT author George R.R. Martin, who hosted a group panel discussion at the international event.

The cast of House of the Dragon hosted a panel discussion at Comic-Con. Picture: Chris Delmas / AFP

Toward the end of the moderator-hosted panel, questions opened up to the floor, where one punter went rogue with his burning question for the cast.

“Were coffee cups banned from the set?” he asked, before being met with a lengthy pause.

Taking one for the team, Smith, 39, answered, “No. They’re everywhere,” before moderator Jason Concepcion quickly moved things along.

English actor Matt Smith addressed a burning question from a fan at Comic-Con. Picture: Chris Delmas/AFP

The infamous coffee cup saga from Game of Thrones' eighth season.

Thousands of people in the audience lined up for hours to watch the panel for House of the Dragon, the hotly-anticipated 10-part follow-up to Thrones.

HotD chronicles the rise and fall of the Targaryen family, set during an era dubbed ‘Dance of the Dragons’, in which a nasty civil war breaks out among the ruling family over the Iron Throne successor.

Martin, 73, was in fine form during the panel, where he made a cheeky comment about the lacklustre final season of Thrones which infamously skipped ahead of his unfinished book, The Winds of Winter.

“Our cast here is amazing, I haven’t had a chance to meet them unfortunately during Covid, I didn’t get the chance to visit the set and hang around, as I did on a certain other show in the past,” Martin said.

“But I’ve seen nine out of 10 episodes, and it’s pretty amazing. I’m really, very happy.”

When asked if he’d feature in a cameo, Martin said he’d been spending most of his time at home attempting to finish The Winds of Winter, which he initially intended to publish ahead of the show back in 2016.

“For the last couple years since Covid hit, I’ve hardly left my house and also you may not know, there’s this book I’m writing, it’s a little late,” he joked.

“[I’m not committing to anything] until I finish and deliver that book and then if the show’s still going, maybe I’ll show up.”

George R.R. Martin at the "House of the Dragon" panel during 2022 Comic Con International: San Diego at San Diego Convention Center. Picture: Kevin Winter/Getty Images/AFP

He added: “I did do a cameo in the original pilot of Game of Thrones but they reshot most of the pilot so I was left on the cutting room floor.

“At a certain point I was supposed to be a severed head, in that scene where Joffrey [Baratheon] makes Sansa [Stark] look at all the severed heads on the wall, I was going to be one of them, but then they found out how expensive it was to make a severed head.”

Elsewhere, 28-year-old British actress Olivia Cooke, who plays Alicent Hightower, opened up about the immense stress of creating a worthy follow-up to the multi Emmy-award winning show, which ran from 2011 until 2019.

“There’s a massive pressure to give you guys what you want, to make it different and put our own stamp on it,” she said.

“We hope this has the same legacy. God, we worked our bums off for a year. And these guys [Martin and Condal] worked for longer. Yeah, man, I hope you like it.”

Ryan Condal said there are “17 dragons” in the prequel. Picture: HBO/BINGE

While cast were tight-lipped on a potential second season of the series, Condal let slip that production had been creating dragons viewers won’t see in the first season.

In what will also excite fans of the franchise, Condal said there were “17 dragons” in the prequel, an extreme leap from Thrones which featured Daenerys Targaryen’s ultra-rare trio of dragons.

House of the Dragon premieres express from the US on Binge and Foxtel August 22