An actor since the age of four, Ansell has already scored major roles like that of a young Coriolanus Snow in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. Now he’s set to grow old(er) with the Game of Thrones franchise as Egg’s role evolves in fascinating ways in the stories to come.
Finn Bennett as Prince Aerion “Brightflame” Targaryen
After eight seasons of Game of Thrones and two of House of the Dragon, the Targaryen family has put together a lot of game tape for would-be dragon performers to analyze and emulate. Still, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms‘ showrunner sounds surprised at how naturally Finn Bennett embodies the privileged Valyrian prince Aerion.
“Finn came in and knocked it out of the fucking park for us. He can do so many different interesting things. Because the show is so religiously through Dunk’s POV, I wanted [Aerion] to feel how Dunk experiences him, which is just this bad shit happens to you sometimes. It drops out of the sky from nowhere. That’s hard for Aerion because there’s less for [Finn] to bite into. A lot had to be done with very little.”
The son of Prince Maekar, who himself is the son (though not heir) of King Daeron II, Aerion is like many other young male Targaryen royals with no reasonable expectation of sitting the Iron Throne. That is to say: he’s kind of a dick. Delving into exactly why he’s kind of a dick was an acting challenge that Bennett, who previously shined in True Detective: Night Country and Alex Garland’s Warfare, rose to meet.
“The biggest challenge with Aerion is that we don’t dig too deep into his psyche as to why he is like this and I think that’s important. There are a lot of villain backstories in general across the film and television spectrum that I’m just getting a little sick of. It’s becoming a little cookie cutter. Aerion is almost unreadable at points. You think he’s having fun with it. Then you think it’s a personality defect or maybe his father. He’s mysterious. It could go so many different ways.”
Bertie Carvel as Prince Baelor “Breakspear” Targaryen
Prince Baelor Breakspear is the black sheep of the Targaryen family in more ways than one. For starters, he doesn’t look much like the other platinum blond dragons, sporting notably darker and shorter hair thanks to his mother’s Dornish heritage. Secondly, he’s also a surprisingly level-headed and chill guy. Much more Maester Aemon than the Mad King Aerys II, the realm has good reason to believe that he will be a fair ruler when he one day takes over for his father King Daeron II.
