In the packed lobby of Leicester Square’s shiny Odeon cinema, Harry Collett is surrounded by concerned-looking people. Some are pointing, most are staring and a few even express condolences: “I’m so sorry.” He could be at a funeral for a beloved relative.
Let us explain. Collett is an actor. For the past four years, he’s played dragon-riding prince Jacaerys Velaryon in HBO’s popular fantasy spin-off from Game Of Thrones (you know, the biggest show in TV history), House Of The Dragon. Tonight, we’re at the season three premiere in London – and the reason guests seem worried about Collett’s wellbeing is because they’ve just witnessed his very violent murder at the end of episode one’s epic naval setpiece The Battle Of The Gullet.
Sploshed into the sea by a flying projectile, Jacaerys struggles to stop his scaly steed Vermax from drowning. Then, in a typically Westerosi shock-ending, four arrows spit out of the fog from nearby ships and bury themselves in his torso. Queen Rhaenyra’s eldest male heir sinks beneath the waves as the audience gasps – among whom are Collett’s shocked parents.
“I waited to tell them [that I died] until we were sitting at the premiere,” Collett reveals to NME two weeks later via Zoom, grinning. Through the laptop screen, we can see he’s having a well-earned rest on the bed in his Stockholm hotel room – the latest stop in an extensive worldwide promotional tour. “Seeing their reactions on the day was unreal. My mum made a verbal ‘oh!’ and my dad pulled a face. I think when you die in a show, it’s not normally as brutal as that…”
Collett’s amphibious death scene (like an underwater version of Boromir’s Lord Of The Rings offing), was the culmination of much hard work. For two days straight in 2025, from 8am to 7pm, the soon-very-soggy 22-year-old was strapped to a motorised saddle on a Warner Bros’ lot at Leavesden Studios as it repeatedly raised and lowered him into a massive tank of “really cold” water.
As most of you are normal and haven’t tried to fake your own death by drowning, you won’t know how hard it is to do. All of the air in your lungs and trapped in your clothes causes you to float quite easily – which makes it hard to act like you’re being dragged down to the depths. Not very realistic. “So they clipped me [to the saddle] and I actually went down [underwater] each time,” explains Collett. A team of scuba divers remained reassuringly close at hand, ready to step in should he (whelp) stop breathing. There was another complication though.
“When I got out of the water, the medic ran over and was like, ‘You need to come with me right now,’” Collett remembers. “My hands had turned blue and she thought I had hypothermia…” Luckily, his fingers’ newly acquired icy tinge was not fatal – but the result of coloured dye running from Jacaerys’ riding gloves. “I’d worn them for the whole show, but obviously they weren’t made for water… For a second, I looked at my hands and thought, ‘Oh no, this is bad. Maybe I’m really dying.’ They say that your skin changing colour is one of the last stages [of death]… Genuinely, I think it put a lot of panic into people.” Collett pauses for a beat, before deadpanning. “That was one of my funniest moments of filming, actually.”
Raised in smalltown Essex, Collett’s acting journey started from a young age. He says he was a bubbly kid who always “wanted to perform” for others. He showed an early aptitude for dancing – spurred on by an obsession with Michael Jackson – and at 10 years old played a young Michael Bublé in the Canadian froth-popper’s cheesy Christmas video for his duet with Idina Menzel, ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’. This led to regular film and TV work throughout his teens that meant he was often absent from school – something his teachers didn’t appreciate.
“I failed GCSE drama!” Collett gapes. Returning to his alma mater recently to collect his younger sister after class, he confronted the teacher. “I asked him: ‘Why did you fail me?’ And he said: ‘Cos you were never here!’ Yeah, I was never there because I was filming a movie. I was doing it for real!”
House Of The Dragon didn’t rear its colossal head until 2020, when Collett was 17. He was invited to try out for a top-secret HBO series but had no idea what it was. He hadn’t watched Game Of Thrones – its gratuitous sex, swearing and violence making it unsuitable for his age when it aired – and even if he had known his Winterfells from his Westerlands, the audition script changed all the names and locations anyway.
“It was a scene with Rhaenyra and Lucerys, but they [replaced Rhaenyra with Lucerys’ brother, Collett’s character Jacaerys] and they were called Jack and Luke,” he remembers. “We were in a living room and I was telling Luke how he shouldn’t feel upset about something.” Collett thought he did well, but the waiting room was filled with more regal-looking types – all longhaired and muscly. “I didn’t think I’d get it.”
Obviously, he did get it. And six years later, Jacaerys’ slow-burn character arc from timid Targaryen scion to headstrong adolescent warrior has revealed Collett to be a young actor of uncommon talent. His future looks bright, even if Jacaerys’ story ends (gruesomely) here.
“I just want to try loads of different things,” he says, when we ask what might be next. “I want to do a play – and [in terms of screen jobs] I want Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio-type roles where you can’t tell that they’re acting. I want to be really naturalistic about it.”
You can’t imagine Pitt or DiCaprio being allowed to mingle with the guests as they exit a premiere. For now, though, that’s where Collett is. Everyone in the lobby tonight may look worried about him, but they shouldn’t be. The sky’s the limit for this dragonrider.
‘House Of The Dragon’ season three streams weekly on Mondays on HBO Max