From Blue Water High to the Kingdom of Westeros

House of the Dragon star Ryan Corr reveals the series is 'a darker departure' from Game of Thrones.

House of the Dragon star Ryan Corr reveals the series is "darker" than Game of Thrones. 

 

It's been three years since we were last plunged into the violent, blood-drenched world of Game of Thrones. The Oz hit the red carpet for the premiere of House of the Dragon on Tuesday night. Where we, in the company of corsetted cosplayers and sword-fighting knights, spoke with Melbourne actor Ryan Corr, who is set to play Ser Harwin Strong in the latest HBO production.

Corr is a stalwart of the Australian screen, starring in Packed to the Rafters, Love Child, and more recently, The Secrets She Keeps. No doubt, the role that’s closest to our zoomer hearts is his performance as the sun-bleached, spike-haired motormouth Eric Tanner in Blue Water High. 

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“It was incredibly exciting,” Corr says on learning he had been cast in House of the Dragon. “Every now and then in this industry, there are these fantasies like ‘I could maybe be a part of that,’ whether it be a Marvel film or Batman or, Game of Thrones. This was one of those.” 

After “auditioning vigorously for a myriad of roles”, Corr found out he had secured the role of of Ser Harwin Strong back home in Sydney. It wasn’t his first rodeo with Game of Thrones, either, telling us that he had unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of Khaleesi’s lover in the original series, years prior. “I don’t think the character hung around very long…” 

"This was one of those moments," fistbump.

It’s the biggest production he’s worked on to date, with the series costing HBO a reported $200 million for the first season alone. 

“You’re walking into castles that are two levels, with live fire. There are teams of people whose sole job is to keep that fire lit, and there are twenty fires in the Great Hall. There are lamb corpses sitting there on the table.

“Everything is tangible and in front of you. The world you see on screen is the world you walk into: everyone is in costume, everyone’s had armour made for them, they’ve got blades and they’ve done the training. You’re with some of the best actors in the world.” 

Ryan Corr at the House of the Dragon premiere in Sydney.

Corr tells us that House of the Dragon is “darker” than the original series. “It’s a departure from the old Thrones,” he says. “I was really surprised by the different feel and tone of the show.

“It pays homage to where Thrones has come from. This happens 200 years before, it’s really about the world that lead up to the first Game of Thrones.” 

Ser Harwin Strong, known as ‘Breakbones’, is the said to be the strongest man in the Seven Kingdoms. “I had the body of a 12-year-old diver,” Corr admits, when asked about how it felt to be bestowed with such a title. 

“We see his [Sir Harwen] essence in you,” the directors told him.

“At that stage, if you’ve got Ryan (Condal) and Miguel (Sapochnik) saying ‘we’d like to employ you’, I wasn’t about to say ‘don’t’”.

Corr isn’t the only Australian set to star in House of the Dragon. 22-year-old Milly Alcock features significantly, playing a younger Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, the first child of King Viserys Targaryen — a dragon rider with ambitions to rule the Seven Kingdoms as the first female Monarch. Emma D’Arcy will play the adult Rhaenyra.

Milly Alcock and Emily Carey appear as younger versions of Rhaenyra and Alicent in House of the Dragon. Picture: HBO

“I watched Milly, who carries the series on her shoulder, go over there with such enormous pressure and deal with it with such grace, and lead the team to what we’ve got today,” Corr says of his costar. 

House of the Dragon will premiere on BINGE, Monday August 22.