House of the Dragon fans was lost for words after one unexpected scene hit their TV screens.
During Monday's (1 July) episode of the HBO show, Ewan Mitchell (who plays Aemond Targaryen) appeared fully unclothed at a brothel in King's Landing.
The scene showed his brother Aegon (Tom Glynn Carney) intruding on Aemond cuddling with brothel owner Sylvi. Aegon drunkenly mocked his younger brother, forcing him to storm out of the room naked.
"Scenes like this start with a conversation about how far you’re prepared to go. It wasn’t a choice we made lightly. But it’s true to Aemond that he shocks the audience. Weakness is not part of Aemond’s vocabulary," Mitchell told Vulture.
Mitchell went on to say he saw a "brilliant opportunity to offer a rare glimpse of his [character's] vulnerability" when he first read the script.
Director Geeta Patel has since spoken out about the scene while praising the actor for his efforts.
"Ewan is such a great actor. He understands what he needs to do in order to portray Aemond," she told the outlet. "When I spoke with him originally about the nudity, I said to him, ‘Let’s just go through the story. If you don’t feel comfortable being nude, then you’re not going to be nude.’ We were both on the same page."
Patel continued: "That shift, from someone who’s vulnerable to literally watching him put on his armour, was what we were going for. It’s one of the few times you see the young child in him and you see the pain in him."
The director detailed a deeper meaning of the scene, adding: "What we came to is that Aemond was hurt. He was bullied when he was little. Since he was hurt, he had created this persona that was the exact opposite of how he was feeling. He created the persona of someone who is callous and has no regard for what others think of him."
"Slowly he starts putting on his armour and when he stands up, the fact that he doesn’t care that you see his penis is such a strong visceral shift. Ewan was like, ‘I want to be fully nude in that moment. It’s important to me because that’s who my character is. That’s what he would do.’ And that’s what we did."
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