House of the Dragon star Steve Toussaint thinks finale death 'would unleash a certain rage' in Corlys
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Warning: This article contains spoilers from House of the Dragon season 1.
Watchers of House of the Dragon all saw what that death in the season 1 finale did to Rhaenyra Targaryen, but how might Lord Corlys Velaryon receive the news? Not well, says actor Steve Toussaint.
Toussaint sat down with EW at the official Game of Thrones Convention, which was put on by Warner Bros. Discovery Global Themed Entertainment and Creation Entertainment at the Los Angeles Convention Center over the Dec. 9 weekend, to discuss how the fearsome Sea Snake would respond to hearing of the death of his grandson, Lucerys Velaryon (Elliot Grihault).
"I think he'd be devastated," Toussaint tells EW. "I think it would unleash a certain rage in him. Somebody mentioned this to me today and I hadn't thought about it: the scene in episode 5 when I say to little Luke, your brother's gonna be king, but you get to do all this. And he says, I don't want it because if I do it then someone's dead. And that, I think, will resonate with Corlys when he thinks about that boy being dead."
"[Luke] didn't really want to be in this, and through the machinations of others, he's now dead," Toussaint points out. "I haven't seen scripts for season 2 yet, but I'm hoping that will be addressed because that's his grandchild."
Ollie Upton / HBO Steve Toussaint's Lord Corlys Velaryon commands the room at Dragonstone in 'House of the Dragon.'
Game of Thrones fans will be able to re-watch the Luke sequence when House of the Dragon season 1 comes home on Digital, DVD, and Blu-ray, which includes a 4k Ultra HD Limited Collectable Steelbook set — all of which drop on Dec. 20.
The season finale is about Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy) and the Blacks making their first moves after hearing that the Greens have stolen her throne and crowned her half-brother Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney) as king of the realms. She sends her sons, Jacaerys "Jace" Velaryon (Harry Collett) and Luke, as emissaries to drum up support from their sworn banners.
Luke arrives at Storm's End to remind Lord Borros Baratheon (Roger Evans) of his House's loyalty to Rhaenyra, but his uncle, Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell), beat him to it. What follows is a chase that plays out on dragonback in the rain-soaked skies above the castle. Both riders lose control of their dragons, and Aemond's steed Vhagar delivers a fatal bite that sends the corpses of Luke and his mount Arrax plummeting towards the unforgiving sea.
"My understanding of what season 2 is, is pretty much it's the war," says Toussaint, who's referencing the Dance of the Dragons, the Targaryen civil war between Rhaenyra and Aegon for the Iron Throne. "Now, I may be wrong 'cause I haven't seen [the scripts], but that's the thing. Are we right to go into war? Am I on the right side? Well, I think Corlys is the kind of person who is like, there is a rule of law. There is a way we do things and it has been transgressed by the Greens. He's forthright in his belief. So it's about that, about being comfortable in your certainty. Once he sets his mind to something, he doesn't really suffer from doubt. It's black or it's white. It's right or it's wrong. I think that's who he is."
Ollie Upton / HBO Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) and her son Lucerys Velaryon (Elliot Grihault) in 'House of the Dragon.'
EW can also share an exclusive sneak peek at the special features that will accompany the House of the Dragon season 1 home release (see the video above.) In a clip about Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith), co-executive producer David Hancock calls the Rogue Prince "arguably the most fascinating character" for being "mercurial" and "unpredictable."
Toussaint points to a moment between Corlys and Daemon as being influential for his own character work. It's a scene in which the Sea Snake is seducing Daemon to join his illegal war for control of the Stepstones. "He says something along the lines of, 'I built mine. You and I, we're second sons. We've gotta prove,'" the actor says.
As a self-made man, Corlys built the wealth of House Velaryon from his storied travels across the ocean. The famed nautical explorer traveled farther than any other before him, bringing back rare riches that have since made his House the most powerful in Westeros, apart from the Targaryen crown.
A Sea Snake prequel series about those travels is in early development and up for consideration as another possible expansion to the Game of Thrones universe. Toussaint says it's been "reasonably beneficial" for him as an actor to research that character history for his own performance as an older Corlys in House of the Dragon.
"Gary Oldman once said, 'If it's not on the script, it's not in it.' So you are going by the script, but yes, you have to have a sense of the character's history, even if you don't necessarily have to," he notes. What was most helpful for Toussaint, though, was understanding Corlys to be a family man.
"It's not about personal wealth 'cause he's rich," he says. "But it's about legacy. We're not gonna be forgotten."
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