Warning: This article contains major spoilers for House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones.Game of Thrones may not have invented the shocking character death, but it seemingly perfected it. From Sean Bean’s Ned Stark meeting his untimely demise in the first season to the Red Wedding in the third season, the show turned killing off characters into an art form, and moments that defined the series. Producers of the show also started a tradition that continues now with the prequel series House of the Dragon: the Call of Death. According to actors from both series, when their time on the show is up, and they are being killed off, they get a call from producers with the bad news. And no one wants to get that call.
In an interview with Variety, actor Harry Collett, who plays Jace, the eldest son of Queen Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy), discussed the “Call of Death,” and how much anxiety it stirs up among actors. He explained why the producers of the series call the actors. “You get something called ‘the death call,’ so you don’t have to do it at the script read in front of everybody, which I think is very nice,” he said.
Collett has yet to get that call (supposedly), but he knows it’s likely coming in season 3. According to the sequence of events in George R.R. Martin’s novel Fire & Blood, “The Battle of the Gullet” is about to begin, in which Queen Rhaenyra attempts to take King’s Landing. The massive naval battle ends with Jace and his dragon Vermax being killed, so Collett’s time on the show may be short. The show has sometimes deviated from the books, so there’s still hope for Jace and Vermax. Collett described his discussion with showrunner Ryan Condal when he thought his character was going to die in a Season 2 episode.
“I said to Ryan, ‘I thought this was my time.’ And he said, ‘Mate, I would have called you!’…So I was just stressing for no reason, but I’m so thankful that I’ve got to last a whole other season, and if I die, I die — I’m thankful to be in it anyway.”
The phones on the House of the Dragon set were likely burning up, as characters die with frequency and brutality. Not even the child actors are spared, and few get to escape its reach. One actor, however, may have avoided it in a unique way. Eve Best, who played Princess Rhaenys Targaryen, saw her character die in Episode 4 of Season 2, in an epic dragon battle that many call one of the best episodes in the series so far. Best said she was well aware her character was going to die ahead of time, as her initial contract to join the show was just for two seasons, so she knew when she would exit the show.
Even the Mother of Dragons Got the ‘Call of Death’
By the time Game of Thrones ended, it seemed like most of the cast had gotten the “Call of Death,” including Emilia Clarke’s Daenerys Targaryen. She died in the final episode of the series, stabbed to death by Jon Snow (Kit Harington) before she took the Iron Throne. In a roundtable with The Hollywood Reporter, she discussed the “Call of Death” tradition and revealed that the doomed actor often gets a free dinner.
“On the show, you have the ‘phone call’…So you get a call from David (Benioff) and Dan (Weiss), who are the creators of the show, and everyone really starts to dread that phone call. Because
you’re like ‘Oh my God, they want to take me out for dinner.’ So you know that’s the kiss of death
. Literally.”
Clarke said that the “Call of Death” became such a common occurrence, that producers had to preface conversations that they weren’t being killed off, and they only wanted to discuss the show or take someone to dinner.
The first and second seasons of
House of the Dragon
are available to stream on Max.