Matt Smith on House Of The Dragon: "Do we need another sex scene?"
Smith says he might have been featured "slightly too much" in the HBO show's sex scenes
Matt Smith has taken time out of his busy schedule of not understanding your Morbin’ Time jokes in order to give some serious interviews of late, largely centered on his prominent role in HBO’s upcoming Game Of Thrones prequel, House Of The Dragon. Including the fact that Smith found himself asking the question that a lot of people have asked about the GoT universe over the years, i.e., “Do we need another sex scene?” To which the answer is, apparently always, “Yeah, we do.”
Smith was talking to Rolling Stone U.K., giving a partially tongue-in-cheek assessment of the number of sex scenes that he, personally, has been asked to do in the series’ first season as Targaryen prince Daemon. Asked if he’s featured in the show’s sex scenes, he responded, “Yeah—slightly too much, if you ask me.”
On a more serious note, Smith then addressed the artistic rationale for all this simulated sex, i.e., that it was, after all, in the books. “I guess you have to ask yourself: ‘What are you doing?,’” Smith remarked. “‘Are you representing the books, or are you diluting the books to represent the time [we’re living in]?’ And I actually think it’s your job to represent the books truthfully and honestly, as they were written.” (We would actually argue that figuring out how to make a version of a work that best fits both its medium, and its era, is a huge part of the job of adaptation, but that’s neither here nor there.)
House Of The Dragon’s attitude toward sex (and its contrasts to its predecessor series on that topic) has already been in the news of late as the show moves closer to its August 21st premiere date. The show’s executive producer, Sarah Hess, gave a clarifying statement earlier this week, walking back a statement made by co-showrunner Miguel Sapochnik about the show’s depictions of sexual violence. Hess notes that, while there is an instance of sexual violence in the show, the focus is on its aftermath, rather than a depiction of the act itself—a pretty marked difference from Game Of Thrones.