I know that the cast has a chance to have not quite rehearsals, but almost like conversations with one another, before the season starts. Ben, how did the two of you go about finding the relationship between your characters?

BEA: I remember we had conversations with Ryan and some of the directors early on, like you say, before filming started. Those were great in illustrating the bones of the relationship. I suppose the rest of it happens as we’re filming and exploring while we’re figuring that out and blocking and rehearsing on the day. It’s that mixture, I suppose: what we’re doing ourselves at work, conversations, and then reacting to one another on the day.

JN: And time! I sometimes get asked [to give] advice to actors. I’ve got to that stage in my life where I’m no longer the one taking it. I’m somewhere in between taking it and giving the advice. But my advice always is: spend time with people who you are working with. We were lucky because HBO have the resources and the commitment to the show, where for eight days we came in to do a read-through for each episode. We did an episode a day. We would come in and have time beforehand to have a coffee. Ben and I sat next to each other in those readthroughs, so we were able to meet, chat, and hear a bit about life. I met your parents and your family. When we got on set, there was already a relationship.

There’s nothing worse than arriving on a set and having to play this type of relationship where there is history and have it be a complete stranger. To have already met Ben and, not literally, but broken bread, chattered, had a coffee, and whatever was crucial. Then, as Ben said, the time spent on set is key because you build rapport, you build chemistry. Those later scenes, which obviously we don’t shoot in linear sequence, but inevitably the last block is the later episodes. By then we had spent a hell of a lot of time together, and there was a rapport which we were able to lean on.

Ben, when you’re conceptualizing Daeron, what was it on the page that you wanted to make sure you drew out in your performance?

BEA: There’s this internal grappling or tension between, I guess, morality, who he is as an individual, and what his identity is. He’s somewhere between Hightower and Targaryen. Around Ormund, he’s certainly Hightower. But as the season progresses, being Targaryen becomes more and more valuable to Ormund, to himself, and to the prospect of becoming king and within this war, which he has no control over. So who he is and who he wants to be, throughout all of this chaos around him, was the main thing that I was excited in exploring. A lot of that comes through the relationship with him and Ormund.

And, as James was talking about, the history that’s there between these two characters. What does it look like when Ormund’s about to let the rage out and trying to pick on those things? His awareness is heightened because of the trauma which he’s dealt with throughout these years with Ormund. So yeah, exploring those relationships, particularly his relationship with Ormund, but also those questions of identity, who he is despite all this chaos.