Matt Smith plays at the London Premiere

Emma D’Arcy attends the ‘House of the Dragon’ UK premiere on Monday.

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A big dragon head, lots of flames, cosplayers and stars galore on the red carpet like House of the Dragon The season 2 premiere in the UK celebrated on Monday night and had attendees and many viewers buzzing with excitement, despite repeated downpours in the British capital earlier in the day. Of course, the Iron Throne was there too.

Stars from the series — including Emma D’Arcy, wearing an eye-catching black-and-white outfit; Olivia Cooke; Matt Smith; Fabien Frankel; Steve Toussaint; Eve Best; and Harry Collett—descended on London’s Leicester Square, igniting the excitement of onlookers who took pictures and video as they cheered and screamed. They joined them for a first look screening of the film’s second season game of thrones prequel, led by showrunner Ryan Condal, who also attended, along with Sky Studios CEO Cécile Frot-Coutaz and Zai Bennett, managing director of content for Sky UK and Ireland.

“It was amazing to play” Season 1 and exciting to come back for more, Frankel told Sue Perkins The Great British Bake Off fame in a Sky interview on the red carpet which was also shown on a screen inside the cinema.

“I got in good shape” for the sword fight, the actor also joked. When asked about Season 2, he shared this about his character Ser Criston Cole’s story: “He’s going to come out of King’s Landing at some point.”

Several stars mentioned the increase in the number of dragons for season two.

“Season 2 is a big dragon-swinging contest,” Cooke shared with Sky interviewers when he hit the red carpet to a standing ovation, for example.

Smith was met with a particularly large reaction and said that there are now 14 dragons, a handful more than before.

“What they need is a bit of group therapy” and a red velvet cake, he joked about the characters’ family spells in an interview on the Sky red carpet. He called his character Daemon Targaryen “an agent of chaos”.

Emotion is again a key factor for the new episodes. “Mourning,” Smith said when asked about the themes of season 2. “Mourning is the catalyst for many of the stormy Targaryen battles.”

Comcast-owned Sky, the long-standing UK partner of Warner Bros’ HBO. Discovery, once again put on a big show, taking over part of the market and rolling out the red carpet outside the Odeon Luxe cinema. For the UK premiere of season 1 in August 2022, the company erected a castle in the center of Leicester Square. Just like then, the cast members in attendance were greeted almost like gladiators, with much applause and many cheers.

Season 2 of House of the Dragon continues the story of House Targaryen’s civil war, with Rhaenyra (D’Arcy), Prince Daemon (Smith) and their Dragonstone forces facing Alicent (Cooke) and her children for the claim to the Iron Throne. The war was started by the death of King Viserys (Paddy Considine) in season 1.

The storylines for Season 2 meant that the stars were often filming their own individual storylines this year rather than doing scenes together.

Condal called the London event “the home run celebration” after a flurry of similar outings in recent days. He added: “This is a great one because this is where we do the show.” He then joked that episode 1 would definitely end up being “the feel-good episode of the summer.”