LOS ANGELES – British actress Emily Carey has opened up about the reservations she had before filming the sex scenes in House Of The Dragon, as there is “a lot of violent sex” in its predecessor, Game Of Thrones.
The 19-year-old plays Alicent Hightower, who becomes the second wife of King Viserys I, played by British actor Paddy Considine, 49.
She turned 18 while filming the series, which was released on Aug 21, and there were intimate scenes between her and her screen husband.
“We have an intimacy coordinator who was amazing,” said the gay actress, who uses the pronouns “she/her” and “they/them” interchangeably.
“Again, still being 17, the first scenes that I read from the show were my sex scene and my intimacy scenes, that includes the scene where I’m bathing the king – anything that felt intimate was considered an intimacy scene, which I thought was great.
“But it scared me because at that point I still hadn’t met Paddy. I didn’t know how much of a joy he is and how easy he was going to make (the scene), and all I saw were, you know, a 47-year-old man and me. I was a bit concerned,” she said, adding that having an intimacy coordinator was essential to allaying her fears.
“I’ve never seen Game Of Thrones before. So, in the pre-production period, I sat down to try and watch it and, of course, the first season, even just the first episode of Thrones, there’s a lot of violence upon women,” she said of the original series, which was a major hit when it ran from 2011 to 2019.
“There’s a lot of violent sex and it made me nervous. I was, like, ‘Oh god, what am I gonna have to do in this show?’”
However, she revealed that the showrunners, writers and directors ensured that there was an open dialogue, which made her feel safe and reassured.
The former child actor added: “It was an amazing thing, and it was empowering being on that set as a young girl and being treated the same as all of these very established men. It was great, I think they approached this in the best way they could have done.”
Co-star Matt Smith previously questioned what he felt was an excessive number of sex scenes in the fantasy series.
He addressed the issue last month in an interview with Rolling Stone UK, saying: “You do find yourself asking, ‘Do we need another sex scene?’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah, we do’.”
