Paddy Considine calls House Of The Dragon's Viserys the "greatest character" he's ever played

Critics and viewers alike have been singing the praises of Paddy Considine for months now, and much of it is due to his performance in the show's eighth episode. "The Lord of the Tides" is essentially Visery's last stand because (spoiler alert) the king doesn't survive the night. After taking a long walk to his throne, defending his daughter's family, and making a final appeal to his house to put aside their differences, Viserys dies quietly in his bed.

After episodes spent languishing and slowly decaying, Viserys finally seizes the opportunity to remind us who he is. But believe it or not, this victorious moment is also the episode that Considine initially avoided. During an interview on the Adam Buxton podcast, Considine revealed that he only watched the episode after his wife and daughter convinced him to see how his last on-screen moment rocked. He explained that it ended up being a moving experience:

"Years ago I watched my dad die of cancer and he went quickly from diagnosis to near death. He went skeletal so quickly. So when [my wife] showed me this ending and my face lifted up, I burst into tears because I looked at the picture of my father when he was dying, the picture of him, and it was shocking. was really, really shocking to me. I had put so much of my mother's things characteristic of this character, Viserys, but when I saw this I thought 'That's my dad' and it was terrifying . So it was something quite impactful."