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
Aux News Matt Smith
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.
47 Comments
Are you representing the books
Isn’t House of the Dragon basically a pair of history text books?
Apparently they are the good type of history text books
Let me fix this: “In the Age of Dragons or Whatever, consent was very important.”
Truly incredible that Matt Smith has never played Frankenstein’s monster.
Why would he? Frakenstein’s monster would play him!
With the help of that wig he could play the Bride.
actually matt smith is the actor, matt smith’s monster is the name of his penis
“Do we need another sex scene?”My reaction to most sex scenes.
Same. I have always been more than happy with off-screen sex. I don’t want to see any more rape scenes, so I guess I’ll be fast-forwarding through any of that.
Well, guess who just got themselves taken off Diana Gabaldon’s Christmas card list.
I can count the number of truly non-gratuitous sex scenes in films on……wait for it……one hand.But yes I agree.
The Terminator is really the only one that springs to mind.
Really? It feels harsh to say that you and Fallon need to see more movies, but a lot of films spring to mind where actually seeing the characters have sex is relevant (sometimes even vital) to the plot and to character development. Random ones just off the top of my head: Don’t Look Now; Fatal Attraction; Bull Durham; Boogie Nights; Basic Instinct; Body Heat; Brokeback Mountain; The English Patient; Secretary; Y Tu Mama Tambien; Out of Sight. This list is hardly exhaustive, but in each of those movies, if you replace the sex with a tasteful fade to black you’re missing a substantial part of what the movie’s trying to say. (Not necessarily the case with Terminator—the audience needs to know that they have sex, but we’re not really learning much from the sex scene itself, other than the fact that Linda Hamilton’s breasts are pretty nice.)
I regret I have but one star to give to this comment.
The sex is definitely a plot point in that one, but it’s still filmed with a view to audience gratification. Representing it in that way on screen was still a gratuitous representation. It’s clearly filmed to evoke a particular set of reactions, sentiments and feelings.I don’t actually think there’s anything wrong with being gratuitous, this is not about prudishness, but c’mon, you can deliver that plot point without sexy music and a camera that fetishises their topless forms if you want to.
How else are we going to see the tits and dragons.
I hate the reductive way people try to belittle a good show. GoT wasn’t just tits and dragons. It was Tits, Dragons, and Half-giant Dicks.
You’re right not to dismiss the half-giant dicks, but it should be pointed out that it wasn’t just “people” putting the show in it’s place, it was Ian Mc-Goddamn-Shane himself: “I was accused of giving the plot away, but I just think, get a fucking life. It’s only tits and dragons.”
My biggest complaint was we never saw Dinklages Dinklage.
But what about dragons with tits?
I don’t think dragons are mammals.
This is just advertising the show to horny Doctor Who fans.
It worked
Honestly Matt Smith is the last Doctor I want to see naked
More like Jon’s Pert Weiner, amirite?
It’s no coincidence that the lack of sex in the later seasons of GoT had an effect on storytelling, since that’s how a lot plot information used to be conveyed 😉
The problem was never really the sex scenes, just the sheer number of times that nude women were just…standing there for no reason. It just felt pathetic.
Exactly, sex scenes in and of themselves weren’t the issue. It was the way they were implemented and how obviously filtered through the (straight) male gaze they were.
[Neil] Marshall described the surreal experience of “one of the exec producers leaning over your shoulder going ‘You can go full front, you know’.” The same executive producer would later pull Marshall aside and say, “Everyone else in the series is the serious drama side. I represent the pervert side of the audience, and I’m saying I want full frontal nudity in this scene, so you go ahead and do it.”Fucking crazy shit.
Not too many jobs where you can legally say that to a subordinate. Wait… is this even legal?
As GoT got more popular on its story and shocking violence they definitely eased up on that shut hit season 1 is full of it. The scene that I always go back to is when Ned goes to see Littlefinger early on and two naked chicks are just making out in the background.
I think that’s actually an indirect symptom of the show going downhill.The term used at the time was “sexposition”. Because they would often include unnecessary nudity to exposition scenes to keep some viewers from getting bored. That eventually stopped.
Might’ve been because the producers became more feminist and less interested in objectifying women. Given the rape scenes that weren’t in the books and were added to the show in later seasons, I doubt it.I think it’s more likely that the story and characters became more simplistic as it went along and it just didn’t need those scenes anymore.
To be fair, what else would women be doing in a bakery?
I always like to say to friends who are just familiar with the show that the books aren’t that horny, and that GRRM is more fond of elaborate descriptions of dinners and banquets than sex and nudity. With maybe the exception of poor Tyrion’s penis.
Marlon Wayans IS Matt Smith inNot Another Dragon/Rape Show!Coming this Christmas
Y’all out here really gonna keep pretending that George R.R. Martin isn’t a sick sack of sperm who wrote rape and degradation scenes 10 times worse than anything captured on film?
Director: I’ve have it with your complaints, Smith! Now get in that house and fuck that dragon!!
Less sex, more floppy weiners.
Maybe you’ll like Euphoria.
REAL floppy wieners. I read that they’re all prosthetic and I want to ask: “Why are you putting a fake penis over a real penis? It’s redundant.”
We’ve got a floppy wiener purist over here.
I’ve recently been watching Boardwalk Empire for the first time and I had forgotten just how pervasive/universal the sexposition was on HBO shows at the time. I can receive information without looking at tits, you guys. Anyway, at least this article didn’t mention morbin’.
It got ridiculous on boardwalk empire in the first couple of seasons when Nucky had that live in escort girlfriend, who existed on the show solely so she could strip naked in every scene regardless of context.
“Nucky’s been making eyes at this Irish widow, I better intimidate her by making her see me naked.”
HBO CEO of tits fired & replaced with CEO of dicks.
The problem is, without the sex scenes, it would just become a reality tv show on Discovery +.