'House of the Dragon's Fabien Frankel reveals a detail from Criston Cole's death that was years in the making

You're dead. Congratulations

Not in real life. Not in real life. I am here. This is real. This is real. But it feels a little kind of AI

I kind of feel like I'm in an episode of Black Mirror. But I am curious, how has life post-death on screen been treating you

How have people been reacting to you differently? Well, it's been, you know, 48 hours

It's like too... it's too soon. People seem sadder than I expected them to

Really? Well, I know that a lot of people, I would say 90% of people are very relieved

But there is the occasional, you know, there's a tinge of sadness

So I'm very touched. Yeah, I am curious because I think that everybody has to, like, curate their own exit Instagram post for this show

And yours included what I think is my favorite. there were a lot of like sentimental set picks and then this like mean girls kristin cole regina

mean i'm curious do you have any like favorite meme reactions why why did that one i just just

someone sent me that and i just think it's the greatest thing ever and i loved mean girls when

i was a kid i mean i still love it nothing's changed i love mean girls equally now yeah um

And I just thought it was so funny. We have to get into the death scene

Yes. It was the rare, I would say, major character death that opens an episode

I'm usually accustomed to seeing them close the episode so we get to sit in it. Yeah, no, I know

Yeah, no glory, no glory. But that kind of feels right. Yeah, yeah

Tell me about, you know, how that whole sequence, The Butcher's Ball, sets the stage for that episode and closes your chapter

Well, from a writing structural standpoint, and it worked so well because they really ended episode five

with teasing that story already. And so I think in a lot of ways that was already very fresh

in people's minds and then, you know, to start. But I think you don't expect it to happen so soon

I remember saying, like, I ran into a friend of mine who was like, oh, man, can't wait for Sunday's episode

I was like, just don't, like, make tea in the first ten minutes

It sets it up and finishes the arc, you know, so well, I think

I mean, it's how George wrote it in the books, and I very much wanted us to honor that, you know, Three Arrows

Yeah, it was, I don't know, it feels, yeah, it feels right. Yeah, you spoke about wanting to honor what's in Fire and Blood

What was something in there that you were like adamant Did you say you smoke honor No Oh no sorry You smoke he smokes that why he crispy he smokes on a he smokes yeah yeah sorry that his drug of choice

you um like you spoke about you know wanting to honor what's in that scene and i'm curious

i can't get this smoking on right off my head now that's the deleted scene just smoking on a

all day, all day every day, that's what he smokes, wakes up, smokes on her

I'm sorry. No, it's okay. Like, what was something from that scene on the page that you were like

we need this, like, this is going to be, this is how we need to close it and honour George's story

Well, no, I mean, the big thing was, you know, like, Kristen's spoken with such reverence in the books

about his fighting ability, and I was so grateful that Ryan had written this kind of amazing fight

scene in the Butcher's Ball in the lead-up, because I think it would have been really easy to

to kind of just go straight to, you know, to the Arrow scene

And you didn't need that lead up. And in a way, albeit like his final moments

weren't in a blaze of glory, the lead up to it was. And I think, you know, Kristen started as a soldier

He finished as a soldier. There's something very poetic about that. And you really got to see what he could do

And that was something I felt that I'd been able to do a little in season one in the fight with Damon

in the first episode. And I hadn't gotten to do that much. other than when I was training Eamon and Aegon

And so I was, yeah, I was grateful that I got to do that fight scene

Yeah. I think one of my colleagues counted and was like, he takes out like 10 people in this

Is that how many it is? Yeah. My brother asked me, and my brother's like, how many is it

I was like, 16. It might, yeah. No, but now it's 10

No, I know it's 10. I'm just like, let's say it's 16. Let's say it's 16. There was something you didn't see

The camera cuts away. You don't know what's happening in that time. But the action, the storytelling in that through action

what was kind of the main arc that you wanted for Kristen in this big final battle, just through the fighting

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the big thing I found with all those fight scenes in general

in kind of medieval adjacent kind of films, everyone always looks like it's so easy

And I wanted him to look exhausted. I wanted him to, you know, they've been on the road for so long

and I wanted the beats and we really worked super hard, me and the stunt team to kind of build the beats in

where you find him exhausted, where you find him out of breath. I sometimes feel like films make fighting look so easy

And there an amazing film that David Michaud directed called The King in which Timothee Chalamet character and I think it actually Tom Glyn Carney have this amazing fight scene in The King And it this like labored exhausted fight And they don look like as much as they trained ultimately

Like they don't, you know, Kristen Cole hasn't fought properly in 15 years. So it's, it's, there's a rustiness, right? And I, and I wanted that to come through in the fight

And one of my favorite, I think, story beats within this fight is the weapon progression

because you go from having a flail to, like, a sword and a dagger. I'd love to hear about that

That was awesome, man. Do you know what? I've been holding a dagger

I had this idea that Kristen should have a dagger. Basically, the end of season one, Kristen Cole goes to, like, take his own life

and he has a dagger in the back of his kind of fit

You wouldn't call it a fit, would you? We'll call it a fit for now. The armor's kind of a fit

Yeah, it's a fit. And it's a good fit. Yeah. He mogs

He mogs. You're taking the mogging title from the Cesar. I tell you, actually, Harry Collette talked about mogging

Explained to all of us about mogging, and now we're all about the mogging

Yeah. No, I had this dagger for a really long time, and I wanted to find a reason to use it

because it's unbelievably uncomfortable. like it's in the back it's in my back all the time and christian uh goddard my my costumer would

always make me wear it and it would be about a day they'd be like are we gonna see it like i'm on a

horse he'd be like you'd never know the camera's gonna appear around so we got to the fight and

we were looking for like a few extra beats in the fight and i was like guys this is the moment and

the dagger has to come out now and so we had that that amazing um beat you know where he kind of

which is so cool they choreographed that so well that's like a great payoff for for multiple

seasons of having to suffer with a dagger in your back. Yeah, I think I think worth it. Yeah

I think so now. Now I think it's what at the time I'll tell you I did not. I wasn't about it. I felt

like I'd made a terrible mistake. I was like, I should have just should have just been a one scene

thing. But it became a sort of 21 episode thing or how many episodes I ended up doing. Yeah

you mentioned Harry and you guys have kind of similar deaths in that you're getting

pincushioned with arrows. He's a very beautiful diar. Did you see his death

He's like a model in the water. He's dying like it's a shoot for Chanel in the water. Yeah

Like a new fragrance. And speaking of mogging that what everyone reaction was They were like he the OG He told us all about this about people telling him that he mogs while he acting and i tell you what when i watch that death scene i know exactly what he talking yes my jaw sort of recesses when i die i don know that i haven

got the jaw structure to mog while i die but then like yeah how do you capture in that moment like

i'm thinking of like a lot of like great arrow deaths like i think of like boromir and now i

think of chase i'm trying to think like how do you well i i think i i enjoyed an arrow death

they're hard to do the arrow deaths you you've got to kind of you've got to kind of move your

body in odd ways to to take an arrow to the to the body that's i don't know if that sounds like

it sounds like a euphemism but it's not yeah i i rank it high i mean boromir it's hard to

outrank Boromir. And Jace has got that beautiful jawline and stuff. And he, like, yeah

They should remake Zoolander and they should put Harry Collette in it

I mean, yeah. Shouldn't they? Would love to see it. He'd be so good in that

He's like Ben Stiller's son. He can add that to the list of his credits. It's an unbelievable list of credits that he has

I am curious just because in this version of Kristen's death, he's shot by Alisand Blackwood

instead of, like, the three archers in the book. I guess, what did you think of that change

in having a different character? I thought that was awesome. Yeah. She was so cool the way she did it

Silent cut. I thought that shot, that, like, long lens shot of the arrow going

and it's such a great piece of cinematography. But I thought she was awesome

Also, what, did you go, that kind of gangster eyeliner? Yeah, it was very, like, Furiosa

Yeah, Furiosa, kind of like Batman when he's off work. Do you mean like Batman when he gets home

Yeah, like taking off the mask, like the Robert Pattinson has. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's given that

Like if she cried, it'd look awesome. You feel like on photo shoots they spend a lot of time trying to replicate that kind of a look

I'd love to know, you know, who are you rooting for going forward? Us

Yeah. I have no, yeah, us all the way. the greens to my absolute core i i yeah it's good to see that you've chosen this sofa yeah exactly

that's a representation of our of my no i i'm team green till i die um uh yeah yeah us yeah

do you have any words of encouragement for them get them get every single one of them awesome yeah