House of the Dragon Star Finds Season 3 Inspiration in Gritty a Scorsese Classic

Even by Game of Thrones standards, House of the Dragon is old. Based on George R. R. Martin‘s 2018 history of Westeros, Fire & Blood, House of the Dragon takes place two full centuries before the events of Game of Thrones, pushing it even further away from our current time and place (though admittedly technology and culture seems pretty stagnant in Westeros).

Yet, no matter how far and away into a fictional Medieval-style past the series goes, House of the Dragon is still made by modern actors, trying to appeal to modern audiences. So it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to hear House of the Dragon star Ewan Mitchell compare his character to one of the icons of 20th century cinema. Still, we can’t help but raise an eyebrow when he told Entertainment Weekly that he found inspiration for playing one-eyed sadist Aemond Targaryen in Martin Scorsese‘s New Hollywood classic, Taxi Driver.

In particular, Mitchell admires the way protagonist Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) “deceives you as a viewer” through the movie. “How on earth could I ever think that I understood that character in the first place?” he asks of Bickle. “You barely recognize him.”

It’s hard to find too many other points of comparison between Aemond and Bickle. The son of King Viserys I Targaryen and Queen Alicent Hightower, portrayed in the show by Paddy Considine and Olivia Cooke, Aemond lives in the shadow of his older brother Prince Aegon, and the two stand together against their half-sister Rhaenyra Targaryen to claim the Iron Throne. Instead of banding together against a common enemy under the leadership of their mother Alicent, who once was best friends with Rhaenyra, Viserys’ two sons have a rivalry against one another.

Part of the animosity stems from childhood jealousies, when Aegon joined Rhaenyra’s children Luke and Jace in mocking Aemond for not bonding with a dragon. The young Aemond rectified the problem by bonding with Vhagar, the Queen of All Dragons, the largest living dragon in the show’s present. Emboldened by the bonding, Aemond stands up to Rhaenyra’s children when they demand Vhagar, resulting in a battle that costs him his eye.

As Aemond One-Eye, he acts like a dangerous loose cannon in the world, even using Vhagar to attack his brother. But Mitchell’s Scorsese comparison suggests that there’s something more to the imposing warrior. Directed by Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader, Taxi Driver focuses upon a nondescript man completely out of touch with society. Bickle has recognizable human desires for love and admiration, but they manifest in odd behaviors, like taking a date to an adult theater or the vigilante violence he enacts at the end.

Taxi Driver has a famously ambiguous ending, in which Bickle’s rampage to rescue an underage sex worker (Jodie Foster) is lauded in the press and results in her safe return to her home. However, the extreme reaction to Bickle’s reaction, combined with his attempts to harm himself at the end of the movie, have led many to believe that it’s all a fantasy. The possibility of fantasy only further separates Bickle from society, proving that even his moral behavior looks frightening from the outside.

More than just film bro pretensions, Mitchell’s allusion helps him advance the themes of the show. “I feel like it is a horror TV show, but the monsters are the human beings in it,” he says of House of the Dragon. And monstrous humans can be found everywhere, in the fantasy world of Westeros and in the gritty streets of New York.

House of the Dragon season 3 premieres at 9 p.m. ET on HBO on June 21, 2026.