House of the Dragon’s Fabien Frankel spent seven months preparing for sex scene with Milly Alcock

Spoilers ahead

‘House of the Dragon’ actor Fabien Frankel has revealed that he spent seven months planning and preparing for a sex scene with co-star Milly Alcock.

In a particularly steamy episode of the ‘Game of Thrones’ prequel series, Frankel’s character, Kingsguard Ser Criston Cole, sleeps with Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, played by Milly Alcock.

This comes after Rhaenyra and her uncle Daemon, played by Matt Smith, visit a brothel together and almost keep up the family tradition of incestuous relationships. But Daemon leaves at the last minute, leaving Rhaenyra to return to the Red Keep.

There, she decides to lure Ser Criston into her bedroom, and lets just say that by the end of the scene, his armour is on the floor.

Frankel has since spoken to Entertainment Weekly about the level of planning and detail that went into the scene.

He said that the aim had been to highlight the “realities of sex” and the humanity of the moment between the two characters.

He said: “It was something we talked about over seven months. It was one of the first things I was very keen to talk about.

“The big thing for me was about it not feeling like another gratuitous, sweat-glistening-off-their-back sex scene, ’cause it’s just not like that. Anyone who’s ever had sex will tell you sex ain’t that beautiful.

“It isn’t some picturesque, amazing thing. It’s awkward, especially when you are young. There’s an uncomfortability that one has to sit in, and there’s a discovery and understanding of each other’s bodies – not to mention the practical side of the whole thing.”

Much of the discussion about the scene was focused on trying to portray the internal struggle going on in both characters’ minds, and working out how Cristen’s armour could be removed in a way that wouldn’t ruin the atmosphere of the scene.

Frankel said that there were many “back and forth texts, back and forth phone calls, back and forth meetings’ between himself, Alcock and director Clare Kilner.

And he highlighted the role and importance of the show’s intimacy co-ordinator Miriam Lucia, who works with the actors to ensure they are comfortable and at ease while shooting sex scenes.

‘House of the Dragon’ has certainly kept up its predecessors’ reputation for raunchy scenes, with episode four certainly not one to watch with your parents.

The show will also now be replacing the likes of Alcock with older actors as a time-jump takes place for the second half of the series.

Co-creator Ryan Condal told Insider that the decision for a time jump was made “early on” in production.

He said: “It’s a conceit but I think it does work, having watched it a bunch of times.

“The people that are truly children in this are the ones that get recast. And the people that are already adults when we meet them, we age them up through hair and makeup and sometimes the actors change their voice.”

The cast shake-up will also help avoid any awkward romantic scenes between actors with a large age gap.