‘House of the Dragon’ star Harry Collett on Jace surviving the season 2 finale

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains major spoilers for the season 2 finale of HBO’s “House of the Dragon,” titled “The Queen Who Ever Was,” now streaming on Max.

For ‘House of the Dragon’ fans who have seen the show but not read George RR Martin’s ‘Fire & Blood’, there were certainly a lot of questions left unanswered at the end of the season 2 finale. But for those in the audiences who have also read the source material on which the HBO series is based, there was at least one additional big question at the top of the agenda: Why didn’t Jace, Queen Rhaenyra’s son, die?

During the final episode of the show’s second season, titled “The Queen Who Ever Was,” Prince Jace Velaryon (Harry Collett) teams up with his mother Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and his wife Baela Targaryen (Bethany Antonia) to preparing for the three new dragon riders they have brought into the fold to join them for the coming war.

In the next plot point in the book, Jace leads these dragonseeds of Team Black against the Greens and their allies in a battle between dragons and ships called the Battle of the Gullet – and Jace dies in the process. But the finale of “House of the Dragon” does not included this battle, or another, and Jace didn’t die either.

Instead, it ends with a montage of the Greens and the Blacks, including Jace, all preparing for war. Rhaenyra has been promised by Alicent (Olivia Cooke) that she will be given the green light to reclaim King’s Landing and the Iron Throne in three days, once Prince Regent Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) is far away in the battle.

When Jace died during the Battle of the Esophagus in “Fire & Blood,” but not before leading his side to victory, many viewers familiar with the books thought we would see yet another season ending with one of Rhaenyra’s sons died on the dragon’s back. Even Harry Collett – the actor who plays Jace! – spent the entire season thinking he would be gone.

That is, until the day he read the Season 2 finale script, when he faced the cast of “House of the Dragon” and showrunner and co-creator Ryan Condal.

“I really thought this was going to be it for me and Jace,” Collett said Variety. “And it’s always that awkward moment where you go to the script and say, ‘Oh, I don’t know if this is the moment, and should I do this in front of everyone?’ But it got to the point where we read the last episode of the script, and it was just a surprise, I went to Ryan and said, ‘Dude, I thought this was it? I thought I was going to die!’

“I said to Ryan, ‘I thought this was my time.’ And he said, ‘Mate, I would have called you!’ You get something called ‘the death call’ so you don’t have to do it while the script is being read in front of everyone, which I really like.

Collett added: “So I was just stressing for no reason, but I’m so grateful that I stuck with it for another whole season. And if I die, I die – I’m still grateful to be part of it.”

But now that ‘House of the Dragon’ has been renewed for Season 3, and Condal and the team are working on the scripts for those episodes, has Collett received that ‘death call’ warning him that the book’s fate is coming back?

‘We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we? The death call remains only between me and me – if and when I receive it.

See more of it Variety‘s interview with Collett below.

I know some cast members have read “Fire & Blood,” and others choose not to. Did you read it? Do you know what Jace’s death is like?

Some cast members have read the books completely, others not at all. And I’m one of those people who’s done the snack thing where I read synopses. So I know what’s happening, but the book is basically a bunch of rumors put together in one big book. So things might change, like in the show compared to the book.

But my reaction to Jace’s fate from the books is that I’m quite happy with it. I feel like it’s a pretty heroic death. I don’t just get stung or poisoned. It’s a death in battle, which I think everyone wants or desires.

How did you and Emma D’Arcy approach the development of Jace’s character in Season 2, where he takes on a much more mature role after Luke dies, and now have deeper conversations with Rhaenyra and offer his own ideas as her heir?

Obviously, me, Emma, ​​Jace and Rhaenyra are getting a lot more time together this season, just to show the core of their mother-and-son relationship. And I like how Jace is more involved in the politics of it all this season. He came up with the dragon seed idea and has put forward even more ideas. The majority of the Black Council just yells at Rhaenyra, not really working with her. With Jace, he is in a position where he has the perfect opportunity to talk to Rhaenyra on a deeper level, where others wouldn’t have the chance to do so. The conversations I had with Emma were, “We’re in a fantasy show, but how can we make this as real as possible?” We discussed having mother-and-son conversations where Rhaenyra was like, “Oh no, you can’t go. You’re too young.” And it’s the classic 16-year-old, “Oh, you’re not old enough to do that.” Having those real conversations, apart from the fact that it’s purely fantasy.

Jace wants revenge for what happened to his brother Luke. He wants to be more involved. He wants to be a mini-Daemon, I always say, because that’s the only overbearing father figure he’s had in recent years. We wanted to make sure it felt very real. And I’m just so glad that Jace isn’t just standing in the corner, leaning on his sword, and that he’s actually doing something this season. I feel proud of the character because he has something to do with this whole journey – and that’s how it should be.

At the end of the season, how does Jace feel about the dragon seed situation and his own feelings about being an asshole?

It’s actually a tricky one, because the idea of ​​the dragon seed was his idea. But he believes that because he’s an asshole, and he knows that – and obviously because of that conversation he had with Rhaenyra – the only thing that sets him apart from the other assholes is that he has a dragon. And now that these other bastards are coming in and taking the dragons, it’s kind of a legitimacy threat to Jace. And it scares him because in his eyes his future is that he’ll be on the throne, but what if he’s on the throne and everyone just looks down on him because he’s the one who put a bunch of bastards on the dragons?

I think he beats himself up about it all the time. I feel like he knows it’s a good thing that we have people on those unknown dragons, and that they’re going to do something. But the fact that he’s responsible and that people might look down on him because of it – he’s just going to beat himself up about it. And it will skyrocket his stress levels, as well as everything else he is currently dealing with.

Will we see more of the friendship between Jace and Cregan Stark – a fan favorite from the book! – in season 3?

I would love to see more of Jace and Cregan, purely for the fact that we only had one long scene together. I feel like we can do a lot with that. I really enjoyed doing it with Tom Taylor. But we’ll have to wait and see. And if I knew something, unfortunately I couldn’t tell you. But I hope so.

Have you seen Jace’s meowing memes popping up on social media this season? If so, what are your thoughts on this trend?

I find it funny when I see it, so I don’t take anything negative from it.

There are also a lot of meowing memes for Ewan Mitchell’s Aemond, and several compare Jace and Aemond’s facial expressions this season. Do you have an opinion on which of you looks better?

I think we’re both great, to be honest. I think Ewan is changing his view at the moment. As much as I hate Aemond, I love Ewan very much – so I’ll give Ewan the win.

Speaking of appearance, Jace’s hair is very different in season 2, going from short and straight to longer and curly. And with the curls it is also a much stronger look. What led to that change?

Nice pun there. In season 1, I was cast quite quickly, had short hair and there wasn’t enough time to grow my hair before I started shooting; a wig was the only option. And they didn’t have time to make me a wig either, so it was a matter of just getting one out of the closet and putting it on me. To be honest, I couldn’t rock that wig very well in season 1. We had conversations early on as soon as they put that wig on me: “Okay, you need to start growing your hair for season 2.” So I probably haven’t had a haircut in a year and a half. And I had One Direction-Harry Styles hair, which was very long. And I thought, I really hope they use my hair now, because I’ve been through all this. I literally tried seven shampoos.

This hair care is completely new to me; I’ve never done it before. So I was really hoping that they would actually keep their word and use it. They cut most of it off, which I was very happy about because that was just awful in the summer. And Ros, who is on the hair and make-up team, put together a mood board to show to Ryan and pitch it to him. And it was just a lot of pictures of Jon Snow, which I thought was really cool, because I think they were trying to make me look like Jon Snow when I was on the wall, which I think is really cool.

But I’m super happy that we got to use my real hair, and it now saves me 45 minutes in the makeup chair in the morning, which is great. So I’m never going to complain.

This interview has been edited and condensed.