Matt Smith admits ‘House of the Dragon’ is under huge pressure

Matt Smith has come a long way from his days of waving the sonic screwdriver around as the titular protagonist in the BBC’s Doctor Who. Now, he’ll be spearheading the hotly anticipated Game of Thrones spinoff, House of the Dragon, as Prince Daemon Targaryen, heir to the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.

Speaking about the upcoming show and the pressure of taking on a franchise as beloved as the hit HBO fantasy series, here’s what Smith recently told ScreenRant in a new interview.

“It’s obviously a big challenge for all of us that have taken it on,” he said. “There’s such a huge fandom that surrounds [Game of Thrones], and rightly. It left a footprint in many ways, and it will be hard to repeat that. Let’s hope [House of the Dragon] evolves into something different.”

After the controversial and divisive final season of Game of Thrones, HBO is betting it all on House of the Dragon to reinvigorate interest in George R.R. Martin’s high fantasy world. The fact that the author has served as showrunner on the upcoming spinoff actually goes a long way towards putting fan concerns to rest, though it doesn’t mean, by any stretch, that the series is out of the woods just yet.

To know how well House of the Dragon fares against the legacy of Game of Thrones, which admittedly casts a long shadow as one of the most popular TV shows in history, we’ll have to wait and judge HBO’s efforts for ourselves when it premieres sometime in 2022.

Martin had previously announced that the series has wrapped filming and is currently undergoing post-production, so the crew must be making headway on schedule.