House of the Dragon Finale Was Saved by a Clever Trick
And you might have missed that trick entirely.
Do you remember the Cargyll twin Kingsguards, Errik and Arryk, who, in fact, were played by twin brother actors, Luke and Elliot Tittensor? The pair whom other characters in the series regularly mistake for each other?
Well, during filming of Episode 10, the process was struck an unexpected blow, when Elliott tested positive for COVID. What the showrunners did then to solve the problem? As you might have guessed, the solution was obvious: make one of the real-life brothers play both of the fictional ones throughout the episode.
"There's that scene, that big scene where Corlys [Steve Toussaint] comes down and they're putting the markers on the table and the messenger comes in," director Greg Yaitanes told Entertainment Weekly West of Westeros podcast. "It was a shot over two days and then one got COVID," he adds. "[Elliott] got COVID, so we swapped him out with his brother."
Good thing the brothers did not have to interact with each other or fight each other in that episode!
Those who watched House of the Dragon know the twin characters actually ended up split in terms of who they supported for the Iron Throne. Arryk (Luke) was in support of Alicent Hightower's (Olivia Cooke) son Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney), while Erryk (Elliot) chose to bow to Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy), after deeming Prince Aegon to be obviously unfit to rule (not like Aegon himself disagreed). As you can guess just from the sort of the story you're watching, the dramatic potential of this split between the brothers will be milked for all what it's worth in later seasons.
Oh, and apparently existence of the brothers caused confusion not only within the story, but on the set as well. There was Luke Tittensor, the actor who plays Arryk, and then there was Luke Velaryon, the character played by actor Elliot Grihault opposite actor Elliott Tittensor, who plays Erryk.
"The way this came to me was the game of telephone," the director joked.