Abubakar Salim Is Trying to Keep House of the Dragon Fresh for Book Readers

Spoilers for House of the Dragon season-two finale “The Queen Who Ever Was” and the book Fire & Blood follow.

It was catharsis in a finale full of cliff-hangers. The second season of House of the Dragon introduced Alyn and Addam of Hull, common-born brothers who are secretly the bastard sons of one of the show’s most powerful players, Lord Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint). “He chose to ignore us for the whole of season one, man!” jokes Abubakar Salim, who plays Alyn, a sailor and shipwright who’s the older of the two brothers. By the time of the finale, he’s had enough of the so-called Sea Snake’s too little, too late attempts to play the concerned father. Alyn delivers a searing rebuke of his father’s failings to the man’s face, letting out years of pain and resentment over being abandoned to fend for himself while Corlys and his legitimate children lived in luxury. Salim says the intensity of the emotional explosion surprised even his character: “Alyn rehearsed this script in his mind for many, many years. Then suddenly it happened, and he’s like, Oh my God, that wasn’t supposed to be said like that!”

Salim — who did standout work as the android called Father on the late lamented sci-fi series Raised by Wolves and has a side career as a video-game developer — says Alyn wanted to communicate one thing to his deadbeat dad: “I’ve got demons here, man, and you are the one who caused it.” Whether those demons will interfere with the character’s legendary future as depicted in Fire & Blood, the George R.R. Martin book on which the show is (sometimes loosely) based, remains to be seen.

Let’s talk about Alyn’s monologue in the finale when he finally lets Lord Corlys have it. Filming it must have been a pretty big deal.
It was huge. We spent a whole day on it, trying all sorts of takes. We tried it screaming at his face; we tried doing it as silently and stoically as we could. It was such a day, man, because we were doing take after take after take, and I was still trying to figure it out and find it. I can remember the moment it cracked, when I had the sense of, I don’t know what I’m saying next. I have no idea where my lines are going to take me.

Alyn thinks he has it all together. He knows who he is, he doesn’t want anything to do with Corlys, he shaves his head, keeps to himself, does his job. He’s professional. But every time Corlys comes to the shipyard, Alyn is like, Here we go again. I have so much to say to this man, but I have to suppress it. This is a wound that can easily reopen, and when it does, it surprises even Alyn. He ends up just spewing, almost out of shock. It wasn’t planned, he wasn’t supposed to do this, but it’s just coming out. The take we landed on — and I think we all knew it on the day — was the one where it almost felt like there was so much to be shared that it was still not enough.

Do you think Alyn got through to his dad?
I don’t think he had any intention of affecting Corlys. He was just venting and saying, “Hey buddy, back off. This is how you’ve made me feel, and this is not cool. Just leave me alone.”

I’d be interested to hear what Steve thinks in regards to whether or not I got through to Corlys. He’s in a vulnerable state because of the loss he’s experienced; he probably took it to heart more because of that. Whether it’s going to have an impact, I don’t know.

It’s nice that despite all the dragons, this is still a family drama at heart.
And that’s its strength. I’m always a big believer that fantasy or sci-fi are simply conduits for expressing what it means to be human. If you were to strip from it all the extra bits like the dragons and the magic and look at its core, it’s very clear.

Alyn is one of several characters this season drawn from the smallfolk, Westeros’s everyday people. What was it like bringing this new dimension to the show?
It’s exciting because it speaks from a perspective that more people are going to be able to understand. House of the Dragon is talking to an audience of people who aren’t kings and queens, who don’t own lands and castles. It’s exposing how when the top makes difficult decisions, it’s the smallfolk who suffer. That’s Alyn’s mentality. It’s also showing that, yeah, you do need us down here in order to do what you need to do. That’s an important message. It’s empowering.

Personally, I also enjoy Alyn because he’s a rare case on this show of a guy who gets along with his brother.
That is so true! Yeah, it’s usually really dark. Everyone is vying for power, whereas Alyn and Addam are just enjoying — well, I won’t say enjoying — we’re just living our lives. Before all of this dragon riding and Corlys wanting to connect with us, we were all about each other and the work we do. We made jokes, laughed, ate goat stew, that’s it. The biggest problem might be, Oh man, it’s a horrible day. How are we going to get through work? We’re not worrying about someone stabbing us in the back of the neck for our throne. It was a very simple life.

That’s the beauty of the story George has weaved: It’s a simple relationship, and you can find beauty in that simplicity. It’s a relationship you wish everyone had, but everyone’s too busy trying to sit on that throne and wear a hollow crown.

You’ve read Fire & Blood. Even though your character is a bit different from page to screen, did the book version inform your performance? Was the difference a help or a hindrance?
With Ryan Condal, the showrunner, making Alyn older, it was freeing, because I can decide, What baggage does he carry with him? Why is he carrying it with him? How does that affect him? He has a more mature stance about it that a kid doesn’t necessarily have.

Also, in the book, Addam is the older brother, not Alyn. The fact that I’m the older brother — what does that do? How does that make me see Corlys? For Alyn as a boy, there was always that hope that Corlys would return. He did, along comes Addam, and then Corlys fucks off again. It’s like, wow, this guy is really something! What effect does witnessing that have? It allowed me to conjure this character of my own.

While Alyn has been named his father’s first mate, his kid brother, Addam, becomes a dragonrider and thus one of the most important people in the realm. Was Alyn tempted to give it a shot himself, or —
No. Fourteen-year-old Alyn? Probably yes, but I don’t think the Alyn of today was. He wants nothing to do with the royals. He doesn’t need the hand or help of Corlys or anyone like that to get where he wants to go. The idea of throwing himself at a dragon? Perhaps it was a cool idea when he was younger, but the way I’m seeing his head now is that it doesn’t make sense. That ship has sailed. Pardon the pun.

So much of House of the Dragon is about these extremely powerful people who are enormously insecure, whereas when you turn to Alyn, he’s like, “No, I’m good at what I do, and I’m happy with it.”
That’s the simplicity and beauty of it. His brother, Addam, is the dreamer — he’s the one who wishes for more.

It’s telling that the dragon Seasmoke had the option of seeking out either of you guys, but he chose Addam, not Alyn.
I believe Seasmoke could tell. These beasts are otherworldly; they’re more than just animals. That’s what I feel George is trying to paint with them. Dragons are nuclear missiles with an opinion.

At the risk of spoiling future events, the book version of you doesn’t stay small for long. He becomes a living legend nicknamed Alyn Oakenfist. You said you factored Alyn’s backstory into your performance — did you plant seeds for his future?
All the time, yeah. For me, the big thing is that people who’ve read the books know where I’m going, so how do I make it fresh for them? How do I make it feel like they’re seeing this anew? The trick is I’m doing the whole “He doesn’t know it, but he knows it, but he doesn’t know it” dance. I’m very aware of where the character goes and who he evolves into, and I’m excited for it. Whether we see that in House of the Dragon, I don’t know yet. But you’ve got to plant these things, I think.

Going from Raised by Wolves to a juggernaut like House of the Dragon — was stepping into this production noticeably different?
Yeah. There’s a feeling of it having already been stabilized: This is an IP that exists, it has its own universe, its own rules, a structure. With Raised by Wolves, it felt we had a lot more to prove; we’re bringing people into this new world. Whereas Game of Thrones had many years to establish the groundwork.

But there was a security in that, a safety in knowing the world I’m dancing in. That was the big thing for me. It felt like, Oh, okay, I know what’s happening here.

I’m sorry, but I just have to fanboy out about Raised by Wolves for a second.
No, no, that’s grand! I’m so sad it didn’t come to fruition for the third season. We had something really cool cooking, and it was just heartbreaking, man. I’m so determined to figure out a way to get that story told in some way, shape, or form. But we’ll see. Give it time.