‘House of the Dragon’ Star Kieran Bew Says Hugh the Hammer and Vermithor Share “Anger” and “Pain”

One of the most awe-inspiring moments in all of HBO ‘s House of the Dragon comes in Season 2 Episode 7 “The Red Sowing.” After barely surviving the wrath of the old, lonely dragon Vermithor, Hugh the Hammer ( Kieran Bew ) tames the “Bronze Fury.” The blacksmith approaches the feral dragon crying, “I’m here!” and “I’m ready.” Vermithor finally accepts Hugh as a rider, the dragon’s first since King Jaehaerys “The Conciliator” Targaryen died decades prior.

Earlier in House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 7 “The Red Sowing,” Hugh revealed to his wife Kat (Ellora Torchia) that he’s been lying about his heritage all these years. Instead of being a humble blacksmith, Hugh is actually the son of a Targaryen princess-turned-prostitute. Although he doesn’t name her, readers of George R.R. Martin ‘s Fire & Blood will realize that Hugh’s mother is none other than Saera Targaryen, the ninth child of Jaehaerys and his wife Alysanne. And potentially the source of Jaehaerys’s greatest grief, as the rebellious Saera ran away from home to become a sex worker instead of a septa. Jaehaerys never forgave her, but in the books he often mistook a young Alicent Hightower ( Emily Carey ) as Saera, finally returned home in the days before his death.

Now that Hugh has embraced his Targaryen heritage and claimed Vermithor, he’s poised to be a key player in the battles to come. Rhaenyra ( Emma D’Arcy ) hopes to quickly end the conflict with the help of Hugh and Vermithor, Ulf the White ( Tom Bennett ) and Silverwing, and Addam of Hull ( Clinton Liberty ) and Seasmoke. However, given that HBO has already renewed House of the Dragon for a third season, it’s easy to predict all will not go according to her plan.

Last week, Decider caught up with Kieran Bew over Zoom to discuss how much he knows about Hugh’s backstory, what bonds him with Vermithor, and where the character currently stands on who should sit the Iron Throne…

DECIDER: Some of the actors have read ahead in the book to find out what happens to their characters. Some take it script by script. I’m curious how much do you know about Hugh in the books and in the lore? How much do you know about where he winds up?

KIERAN BEW: Yeah, I know everything because, like, it’s my job. You know, when I get given an audition, the first thing I do is I look at what they’ve sent me, and then I research the hell out of the origin of the thing. Whether it’s a true story, whether it’s a fictional character, whatever. I try and soak it all up. Because you’re trying to load your own performance in the audition to hopefully hit key beats. Like, “Yeah, he can do what we need him to do.” I don’t want to miss it. If I miss something, I kick myself. Also one of my favorite parts of the job is research and kind of getting into what motivates a person and the sleight of hand. It’s like, well, do we want to play that on the nose or would you want to hide it behind something else? Working on film, it’s all about playing with the subtext of the inner life of something and maybe doing the opposite to play with that.

I am a huge nerd and so I’ve read all the books. In this week’s episode, when Hugh starts talking to Kat about his mother, I was like freaking out as a book reader. Because I was like, “Oh, is it Saera Targaryen? How much does he know? Is that what they’re confirming?” I’m curious, did Ryan Condal or anyone else give you more details or backstory to Hugh as it pertains in the show? And can you confirm if his mother is in fact Saera Targaryen or not?

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So, you’re the first person who’s mentioned a name.

Oh, okay.

In truth, I don’t know if I’m allowed to confirm, but it can’t necessarily be anyone else. The thing is, for me, Ryan did tell me, because he gave me that scene and I was just so excited about it and I was reading the book. But actually, you know, I think of when I asked him about it, I was back reading about Aegon the Conqueror and I wasn’t reading that bit and, yeah, he told me. He told me who my mum is and it immediately gave me a huge backstory, huge motivation. because I scoured the book for information and, of course, we know it’s secondary, tertiary source material, whose opinion is it? Whether it’s true, whether it’s not. There are events that may or may not have been true or happened, but I learned quite a lot about her and her offspring and like where events fit within that and it’s so much fuel for who he is and where he is and what you’ve been seeing of him so far. Like it’s me, it’s just like the biggest gift. It was the best birthday present because I couldn’t believe it, you know? Yeah. I don’t know if that’s me confirming or denying.

But as a nerd, I was like, it has to be .

I’m so excited that you know that.

I told you I’m a big nerd. Anyway, in that same scene, we get confirmation that his and Kat’s daughter did die. His personality seems to have a huge shift now in how he sees his role and what he has to do. Can we talk about how losing his daughter and going through these deprivations have transformed his character?

Well it is, you know, actually desperate times. Obviously anybody can understand trying to look after their family in a situation you feel is an impossible and untenable. It’s interesting that it got so bad that only after his daughter has died has Hugh decided to reveal to his wife who he actually really is. The fact that there’s been so much shame and he’s been going against that so much. He hasn’t talked about it with the woman he married and had a child with. He’s using it to convince her that, actually. this suicide mission that I want to go on, or this gamble, my dice is a little bit more stacked than you think it is. But he’s revealed that information under duress, which says something about the magnitude of the shame and how difficult it’s been for him to be an illegitimate member of this family and not acknowledge it. Because acknowledging it means, not only do I have to tell you who I am, I have to tell you what I come with. And I come with this thing that I love, but I’m also ashamed of and that’s a huge motivating factor.

So, he is in a lot of pain at that moment and being a very practical, pragmatic and proud person, who has been trying to do this, he is trying to make the decision with his wife. He’s trying to say, “Please, can you say it’s okay for me to do this? Because I’m going to go and I’m saying I’m something I’m not. I haven’t been telling you the truth.” So it’s an enormous admission.

‘House of the Dragon’ Reveals Hugh the Hammer is the Son of Saera Targaryen, the Princess Who Became a Prostitute

Yeah. Kind of on that note, I really thought it was like, smart contrasting Hugh with Ulf this episode. Because Ulf is like, “Wait, I might actually not be a Targaryen, I don’t know for sure.” And your character goes into the whole Red Sowing, knowing without doubt who his mother is. Ergo he has no doubt in terms of the parentage and the heritage. How do you think that affects him as he approaches Vermithor? I was really struck when he says, “I’m ready.” That seemed to be a moment where he crossed the Rubicon and embraced his heritage.

Yeah, exactly. I know not only I’m ready, I’m here. I think, going into a room with a beast that size, I think Hugh is going in as frightened as everybody else. But, you know, he’s made the decision. He’s going to stand in front of it and he thinks he has an upper hand on other people. When Rhaenyra turns around and says, “Who will be first?” He does hesitate, which I think you could be forgiven for hesitating. And someone else gets in there and, really for me, there’s a disappointment there. Because it’s very apparent in that moment that, “Oh shit, I might have just reduced my odds of survival here. Because there are a finite number of dragons and if this guy claims this dragon, are we going to be eaten? Are we going to get another chance? Are we going to get taken?” You know, there’s a lot to be calculated. Of course, the shit hits the fan and then it’s just about survival until there’s a moment where it becomes a race and then the decisions have to be made.

Yeah. In terms of the action sequence, I mean, I saw on last week’s behind the scenes featurette, like how much fire was used for the Steffon Darklyn scene. And Harry Collett, who’s set pretty far back, was like, “I’m hot from all this heat.” You guys have way more fire, way more stuff’s going on. What was it like for you guys to maneuver? How much of it was CGI? Was it all practical?

The majority of it is practical. Anything that is CGI, I really haven’t seen. I don’t think they would need to add any more CGI. I’m sure they did, but it was a lot. I think Rowley and his team are the best in the business as far as I’m aware. I mean, they’re incredible guys. They did a lot of the stuff, a lot of the very big sequences and the biggest sequences in the Game of Thrones . So one of the nights, we actually had to shoot the sequence in the open air. We weren’t allowed to do it in the studio because they burned so many people, more people than they’ve ever done before. So being next to it, it’s something like nine feet you have to be. Well, nine feet sounds, I don’t know, does it sound a lot? Because when you are close to somebody on fire, nine feet is not a lot. We had multiple people on fire. We had to act and you have to wait until you have your cue for your feet to move. Plus, you know, everything is safe and everything is obviously managed really well, but the gel that they put on their feet to set on fire, that can come off. You’re running around with a wig that’s cost 20,000 pounds or something and you’re thinking, “Okay, don’t set fire on the hair. Don’t forget your cues. Don’t fall off the massive dragon plinth, which itself is about thirty feet off the ground, and don’t knock anyone else off.” You know, there’s so many things to think about, but it’s thrilling. Tom Bennett and I stood while they tested the three meter long flamethrower that they were going to blast one of our stuntmen in the face with, and when they first lit it up, we could not stop laughing. We were almost tears in our eyes laughing because we were like, “Someone’s going to stand in front of that fucking thing. Are you joking?” And the heat that comes off it is, you could cook off it and it’s thrilling. Then to have somebody say, “It’s all right, you’re safe.” You’re like, “Okay, great. We can stand here? Okay, cool. Great.” It’s like a bonfire night. Yeah.

I was thinking of Tom Bennett. You know, in the books, Hugh and Ulf kind of get paired together a lot. Have you and he sort of bonded over being dragonseeds and potential cousins?

I mean, what’s great is in the series at the moment, it feels somewhat like a double act. I’m going through something [serious]. He deals with everything with humor and comedy and sort of chatting. At the moment, you know, I’ve been kind of like trying to play it by the book, really, and sort of toe the line. [Hugh]’s very very serious and going through some very serious stuff. So it does make us a natural double act.

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Together as guys, as actors, we’re both about the same age. We’ve both got three kids and we both absolutely love our jobs and we love this world. So we normally greet each other every day saying, “Hi, mate! I can’t believe it, we’re on House of the Dragon , you know?” And we just just say thank you a lot. I mean, it’s joyous to be part of the show. The team are amazing and we don’t take a second of it for granted. When we did the burn in open air, we were on the sets. Okay, so we were at the studios. We’re dressed as our characters. We did a little EPK that night as well. So we’ve been in the Red Keep. We said, “Should we go for a walk?” We weren’t being used. We walked around the Red Keep. We went and looked at the scorpions, to see if we could load it up, fire it up. We went to the Wall. We went to the Godswood tree. You know, we had a little walk around King’s Landing. We got to look at the ships. I mean, we went to the North of the Wall. We looked out over the wall, you know. It was phenomenal. I love Tom. He’s a joy. So glad he’s on the job. We became very close very quickly.

I kind of can’t stop laughing at the disparity between what Hugh goes through to tame Vermithor and how Ulf just, like, trips onto Silverwing, who just basically bops him like a puppy dog. Reading the scripts, do you think that maybe Rhaenyra should have started with Silverwing and not Vermithor for the Red Sowing?

Yeah, I did wonder who made that decision, especially after the previous episode. You know they know these things go. I guess maybe they just thought, well, you know, if we got all these people, let’s bring the angriest dragon out. We bring the biggest, angriest dragon we have and just see who’s left. Yeah, I suppose is the most efficient way of doing it. Scary.

I’m not gonna be able to see the finale until the night of. But I’m curious if you can tease whether or not you’ve been on the bucking bronco yet because we get a shot of your character kind of in the background on the dragon, which may or may not be you. I’m just curious if you can tease anything.

I couldn’t possibly say. I mean, all I’ll say is I love horse riding and I can’t believe I get to be part of this world and do this job and you’ll have to wait and see.

I know that Ewan Mitchell has talked about, like, Vhagar and Aemond having similarities in their personality that they relate to and a lot of dragonriders seem to have those in Game of Thrones. What about Vermithor do you think connects with Hugh?

On one level, I think there’s anger. And I think that there is a familiarity that Hugh has with the previous rider, which is to do with pain and resentment and powerlessness and wanting to be able to control more than you can and wanting to be heard. I think that one of the things that I really loved about Vermithor — and seeing Matt sing to them in the first season — I have this reference of this beautiful dragon with these teeth that look like a sort of overused iron maiden that is going to really hurt if it bites you. [Hugh is] this blacksmith with this beard that kind of, like, goes out like: (mimes the beard splaying out) I kind of wanted it to be like an owner that looks like his dog. When does it happen to the dog? Did the owner buy the dog that looks like the owner? Or do they sort of merge and end up looking the same? I kind of felt like visually, I wanted it to be like a sort of almost like a mirror of going, “Oh, hey, it’s you. Yeah.” And, “Oh, it’s you.” And that there was a natural simpatico that actually it was meant to be. Really, just unfortunately, he’s been illegitimate and he hasn’t been around because illegitimacy and shit. You know, it’s hard being a bastard and it’s hard living in an awful sort of hierarchical family when you’re not acknowledging really who you are.

One thing that’s interesting about your character is, over the course of the books, at least, his interest in politics changes, shall we say? When we meet him, he’s part of the smallfolk. He has a different point of view than the other Targaryens. Where do you see his political mindset at this point in the story? Does he think Aegon or Rhaenyra should be ruler? Does he care who’s ruler? Where do his loyalties lie?

Because of the fact that I’ve kept a secret who I really am, I think that he has resentments about all of them. And I think that there are resentments of the hierarchical nature and the way that people are oppressed. But he is also trying to live within the system, you know? Whether or not he has an opinion on who should succeed or who should be on the throne, who shouldn’t be on the throne…He has a position. He’s trying to fulfill that and he’s just trying to live within the system. He’s not interested in politicking. He’s trying to exist in a way that has some sense of honor and his version of legitimacy. He’s trying to not look at the stuff that makes him feel bad. So I don’t think he’s looking at them and making any decisions at all. I think it’s a system. There’s a system and it also happens to be cousins that I don’t fucking talk to because they won’t fucking talk to me.

This interview has been edited and formatted for clarity.

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