New interview with Ryan Corr:
He began 2020 with eight-part ABC/Jungle Entertainment drama Wakefield, playing one half of a messy but committed couple. That was followed by a career coup – the role of Ser Harwin ‘Breakbones’ Strong in the highly anticipated HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon.
Corr entered three months of rehearsals in 2020 ahead of a six-month shoot at Warner Bros. Leavesden Studios in England in 2021, with the series also filming in Devon and Cornwall.
Speaking about the difference between the large-scale series and Australian productions, he said the local sector had proved to be an “incredible training ground”.
“It’s really an exercise in learning how to use your energy differently,” he said.
“In Australia, we’ll do 12-15 scenes a day and shoot about the equivalent in minutes, whereas over there, you can shoot one scene every two weeks.
“If you come in ready to go at the start of the day and are active through all the takes, by the time you get to your time at the end of the day, you can find yourself a little bit depleted.
“In Australia, the industry really trains you up to be ready for everything because we do one or two takes and move through it.
“There is a bit of an adjustment when you go and do bigger scale things but essentially the job is the same – it’s all reliant on trust and who you are working with.”
Based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, House of the Dragon tells the story of House Targaryen and is set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones.
Martin and Ryan Condal serve as co-creators on the series, with the latter also a showrunner alongside Miguel Sapochnik. The pair executive produce with Martin Condal, Vince Gerardis, Sara Lee Hess, and Ron Schmidt.
As Ser Harwin, Corr plays a man believed to be the strongest in the Seven Kingdoms, the eldest son to Master of Laws Lyonel Strong and heir to Harrenhal.
Interest is undoubtedly high in the spin-off following a mixed reception to the Game of Thrones finale in 2019, with the House of the Dragon trailer clocking up more than 15 million views on YouTube since being released four months ago.
While Corr acknowledged there was a legion of fans to whom the story “meant so much”, he had been careful not to let the hype surrounding the series influence any stage of his process.
“There’s a subconscious pressure that can creep up if you are not careful,” he said.
“What Miguel and Ryan talked to us about on set and during the auditions is alleviating all that from your mind.
“They said, ‘We don’t want people on here acting like they are going to be on Game of Thrones, it’s about bringing yourself to the forefront and humanising these people’.”
That is not to say there weren’t times when he became aware of the amount invested in the series, whose predecessor recorded episode production budgets in excess of $10 million.
“The sheer size of it was something I was amazed by,” he said.
“When you are walking into operational sets with actual jousting tournaments and full-level scale castles with fire cauldrons hanging on the roof, it’s a pretty incredible place to be.
“It’s like walking into a live Shakespeare play.”
