‘House of the Dragon’ director explains the battle for the esophagus

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for the Season 3 premiere of “House of the Dragon,” now streaming on HBO Max.

During early discussions about how they would realize the highly anticipated Battle of the Gullet sequence that opens the third season of “House of the Dragon,” director Loni Peristere (who previously directed the Season 2 episode “Red Sowing” and calls himself the biggest “fanboy” of George RR Martin’s books) remembers telling his director of photography, PJ Dillon, one important thing: “We need to get back to what epic means for battles at sea.”

Peristere got his creative team’s juices flowing after seeing the landmark painting Battle of Trafalgar, which depicts Lord Nelson emerging from a “horrific” battle surrounded by dead bodies in the water, and attending a London screening of Peter Weir’s 2003 epic “Master and Commander,” which ultimately shaped the crew’s approach to capturing the “living, breathing life of a ship.”

The Battle of the Esophagus (originally cut from season 2 due to budget constraints) is finally here, depicting the epic naval battle between the Blacks, the forces of Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and the Greens, the loyalists of the King’s Landing under King Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney). The series required full versions of Corlys (Steve Trussaint) and Lohar (Abigail Thorn)’s ships to be built and operated on both a dry tank and a wet tank, thousands of gallons of water and extras and of course countless CGI dragon battles that required mechanical money.

With the help of naval consultant Craig Lambert, the “House of the Dragon” crew gathered references on how real ships work to build both ships – the Queen Who Never Was and Bitchfist – efforts largely led by production designer Jim Clay and line producer Kevin De La Noy.

“There was a very strong desire among all of us, despite being surrounded by blue screens, to put everything on deck. Even though we have land, sea and air, we wanted everything that was on deck to be legitimate, real and present,” says Peristere. ‘So if you’re with me [the dragon] Shrykos and they shout the order: ‘Take the ship!’ it’s like we’re there with her, and we’re doing that uninterrupted cutting [with a] little seamless stitch that you don’t even see.”

That mentality also extended to Peristere’s work with the actors: “We rehearsed all this work with real Navy people standing on those decks, so everyone in the background is doing the right thing.”

The episode had to be meticulously planned, with everyone being “on point,” Peristere says, including the crew members directing the movement of the water cannons. He even created a Wikipedia-style document of 186 pages with information for each department head, based on the blood and wind levels needed at certain times.

“Even though we have a decent budget, we’re not a $300 million movie. So everything we had to do had to be done on the day. We’re not Marvel,” he says. “If you didn’t get the shot the next day, it didn’t work because we were on a very tight schedule.”

In addition to the episode’s massive set pieces, Peristere recognized the need to keep the human drama and characters front and center, especially with the two-year gap between seasons 2 and 3: “We taped off the deck of the ships to the inside of a stage and we started, ‘Let’s rehearse with just the cast. Let’s talk about drama.'”

One of the episode’s most shocking moments comes when Jace (Harry Collett), Rhaenyra’s eldest son, dies after being struck by arrows from a rival ship in the water (Collett spoke to Variety about why filming the scene was so difficult.) Collett was intentional about how he played Jace’s final moments in the water, along with the death of his dragon, Vermax.

“Even when the arrow comes, Jace says, ‘I’m a god, I’m a dragon rider. And when I show up and take a breath, even though I’ve lost my dragon and I’m heartbroken, I never think I’m going to die. Baela’s going to pick me up,'” Peristere says. “Harry really leaned into it, and God bless him, because we put him through the wringer.”

Following the episode from the beginning on a foggy morning, viewers get a full look at the day and “the feeling of the sun changing” as the body count settles: “When we get to the finale, when all is lost, we wanted that feeling of separation. Driftmark is gone, the ship is lost, there are bodies in the world, and there’s nothing we can do about it,” says Peristere. “It’s just hell on earth. When you see those last two frames in the episode, you’re like, ‘Wow, we just had the biggest epic battle ever. It sucks! It feels terrible!'”

The Battle of the Esophagus kicks off this season with literal fire. Rhaenyra will not only have to deal with the death of another child, but also that same child’s decision to betray her and lock her in a room.

“Because Rhaenyra, who is cast aside, can’t be king, can’t sit on the Iron Throne, and is even locked up with her own family within her own court – we literally see Emma D’Arcy become queen and king at that moment,” Peristere says. “And then she brings that knife down, and that’s exactly the point. That knife goes into the entire hierarchy and we feel it coming. It leads us straight to episode 2, where Claire [Kilner’s] brilliantly directed, and honestly, the start of what canonically becomes a bit of madness.