Here Are The Four ‘House Of The Dragon’ Actors Being Recast, And When

One of the biggest risks that HBO’s House of the Dragon is taking is leaping forward through time to the point where it will need to recast many of its young actors, given the age they’re supposed to be as the story progresses through 28 years in total. While older actors can be aged-up in the future, or aged-down ahead of the change, there are four that are being recast entirely, including the series’ “flagship” actress, who no doubt has a bright future ahead of her.

The recastings are supposed to occur between episodes 5 and 6 when there’s a decade time jump, though it’s possible they could still be seen in flashbacks in the future. The actors are:

• Rhaenyra Targaryen – Milly Alcock will be replaced by Emma D’Arcy
• Allicent Hightower – Emily Carey will be replaced by Olivia Cooke
• Leana Velaryon – Nova Fouellis-Mose will be replaced by Nanna Blondell
• Laenor Velaryon – Theo Tate will be replaced by John MacMillan

I’ve said before that I think the show is going to really feel the blow of losing Milly Alcock, who has done such a great job as Rhaenyra already. Although conversely, I have been extremely excited to see Olivia Cooke join the show. Nothing against Emily Carey, I’ve just been a Cooke fan since her Bates Motel days.

You can kind of understand why they’re doing this, if the show does have to progress through time. While the 22 year-old Milly Alcock can play younger, and will be playing something like age 15-18 by the time she’s done, if you’re leaping a decade forward, I don’t think you’re going to be able to age her up enough to avoid recasting with someone like Emma D’Arcy, who is 30, and can play a range closer to that age. And for the much younger characters like Leana Velaryon, it’s literally impossible.

It remains to be seen what the long term plan is for House of the Dragon, how long it will take to get through the 28 year story and what the show may do to go past that, in future seasons. It’s already been picked up for season 2 by HBO, and in the past, it was mentioned that this could end up being a Targaryen anthology, going forward or backward in time, and if it did that, it would mean an entirely new cast in the future. Not sure how that would be received, but we’ll see where we end up at the end of this first season here, as clearly we move through time a good bit, given what we know about how all these characters are aging. More tonight, and plenty to discuss tomorrow.

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