‘House of the Dragon’ Blood actor breaks down how the ‘horrific’ first episode was filmed. He says his character almost met an even grislier end.

Unlike in the book, viewers only see a couple of shots of Blood and Cheese lunging at the cot before putting a hand over the child’s mouth. It then cuts away to focus on Helaena, instead of the toddler being killed.

“We had a dummy that was, I suppose, a loosely dressed, slightly more human-looking resuscitation dummy. On the day we knew it would be a cutaway with implied violence,” he said.

“So we went over to this cot and just looked busy in the most horrible way.”

Wilson also assured fans that none of the young actors who were involved in the scene saw what he and Stobbart acted out.

“The children were only about when we sort of looked upon them sleeping. And then whenever there was any dialogue or any sort of nasty words being said, any kind of implication of anything like that, the kids were nowhere near it,” he said.

Responding to fans complaining that the scene wasn’t gory enough, Wilson said that the idea of the violence inflicted on a child is distressing enough.

“I think that, ultimately, it was still horrific. I mean, because I did it so long ago and I look different now when I was watching it… I really was wincing. It’s not a nice watch for me either,” he said.

Don’t worry, they didn’t actually kick the dog

In the second episode of the season, King Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney) executes Blood to get revenge for his son’s death. Although Wilson said he was up for “epic” torture faithful to the book, his character is killed quickly with a mace.

But the scene could have been grislier.

“I think there was talk of Aegon potentially missing and not getting a clean break, so my jaw comes off. Which again, I’d have been totally down for,” Wilson said.

It took seven hours to build the prosthetics of Blood’s broken face, before the death scene was filmed five times.

“They film the shot with you already bloodied up, and then you go out and you have all the prosthetics removed, and then you come back in and film it again,” he explained.

“If you slowed it down, the mace would be swinging to an unmarked face up until it connected, and then it would be a jump cut to when we had the prosthetic on.”

Wilson hopes his relatively small role will lead to even greater things. Leading roles in one of the biggest TV shows of all time made “Game of Thrones” alum, including Kit Harington, Richard Madden, and Emilia Clarke, household names. Meanwhile actors with smaller roles in the series have also seen their careers flourish, like “The Last of Us” star Bella Ramsey.

Wilson will next be seen in the crime-comedy movie, “Deep Cover,” alongside Orlando Bloom, Sean Bean, and “House of the Dragon” star Paddy Considine.

There’s also a super-secret project that Wilson can’t say anything about —but judging by the ear-to-ear smile over Zoom, he’s incredibly excited about the future.