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House of the Dragon has introduced new characters in the Game of Thrones universe. Targaryens are the ancestors of the family we already met. New characters like Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) have made quite an impression too, but Frankel was mortified when he filmed his first scene. 

Frankel was a guest on the House of the Dragon podcast on Sept. 11. When he shared the first scene he filmed for the show, Frankel admitted he thought he’d “totalled f***ed it.” New episodes of House of the Dragon premiere Sundays on HBO Max.

Fabien Frankel screwed up Ser Criston Cole’s face in his first ‘House of the Dragon’ scene 

The first time House of the Dragon viewers see Ser Criston Cole, it’s in his duel with Daemon (Matt Smith). The first scene he filmed was much simpler, but he made it far more complicated. 

“I had a line, I don’t remember what the line was,” Frankel said on the House of the Dragons podcast. “I wish I could remember what it was. Essentially my character being told off and then being told I was on night duty. I had to stay up all night. All I had to do was roll my eyes. That was the basics of the scene. I swear to God, the faces I pulled in that scene, I remember going this is it, I’ve totally f***ed it.’”

Miguel Sapochnik was directing the episode. Fortunately, he gave Frankel another chance. 

“To make matters worse, I went like maybe they haven’t seen it,” Frankel said. “Maybe their attention was on someone else. Miguel marched through 250 background artists to go, ‘Fabien, what’s up? What’s going on with your face?’ It was just the worst f***ing experience of my life, I can’t even tell you.”

Fabien Frankel ‘forgot how to act’ on ‘House of the dragon’

Well, there you have it. Even the most badass House of the Dragon knights are human like the rest of us. Frankel remembered being intimidated on the set. 

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I just remember the first ever day of filming being bitterly nervous, really looking at everyone and going I can’t, there’s got to be something, they’ve made a mistake, it’s not possible that I’m here. We got called to set. We arrived and we were on this place called St. Michael’s Mount which is this incredible island which I guess doubles for I want to say Dragonstone. I might be wrong but somewhere really beautiful. It was this big group scene and they put the camera on everyone and it was like here’s a closeup on Paddy [Considine], then there’s a closeup on Matt, then there’s a closeup on Steven [Toussaint]. Everyone was just knocking them out of the park. Then the camera finally got around to me and I swear to God, I literally forgot how to act. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know what to do. 

Fabien Frankel, House of the Dragon podcast, 9/11/22

There’s a ‘House of the Dragon’ audition story too

The trouble started for Frankel even before he got the role of Ser Criston Cole. He remembers his House of the Dragon audition throwing him, too.

“I got sent dummy sides like a dummy script,” Frankel said. “I don’t know what it was from. The character was called Sir Clint. That’s all I remember and I didn’t really know anything. My friend who I did the audition with has this really Shakespearean and he can do that thing that Rhys Ifans does with his voice. So he would just say Sir Clint in this really clipped way. All I can really remember in the audition is him saying Sir Clint all the time. It felt like I was doing the tape more for him to experiment with his rendition of saying Sir Clint than me to get this role in any way. So that’s my memory of the audition.”

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