Steve Toussaint looks calm, cool and collected. It’s the end of June, and Europe is in the midst of a massive heat wave, with temperatures hitting record-breaking highs. He’s wearing a white tank top and wiping his brow with a cloth, but outside of that one simple adjustment, he never seems to break a sweat.

You could say the same of his House of the Dragon character. For a few seasons now, Lord Corlys Velaryon has been the coolest person in the room – both in terms of his costuming (as the Lord of Driftmark, he might as well double as the Lord of Dripmark, since his outfits and even armour leap off the screen with real character) and his imperial demeanour.

That is, until the start of season three and the show’s much-anticipated Battle of the Gullet. House showrunner Ryan Condal compared the famed naval battle to Helm’s Deep (The Lord of the Rings) in terms of its size, scale and impact. He wasn’t wrong. The losses that come in the wake of the Gullet are seismic, including the death of Jacaerys Velaryon (Harry Collett), son of Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy). And while Lord Corlys gets his revenge on Lohar (Abigail Thorn), the commander of the Triarchy fleet who had become a particularly annoying thorn in his side, it comes at the cost of losing his House – and almost his life.

With so much loss around him, Corlys’s priorities have shifted accordingly. The self-made man is now trying to ensure that his bastard children, Alyn (Abubakar Salim) and Addam (Clinton Liberty), are recognised by the crown as his heirs. But when Rhaenyra denies that request, it sends Corlys into a rightful fit of rage as he leaves King’s Landing on an unknown journey. It’s one of the few times we’ve seen the character lose his cool, but as a man with little – if anything – left to fight for, shouting at the queen is a risk he’s willing to take.

For Toussaint, the previous three episodes have provided him with one of the show’s meatiest arcs to date. Men’s Healthsat down with the actor to talk about filming the Battle of the Gullet, the show’s darker turn, honour, ambition and much more.

MH: Season three of House of the Dragon has been particularly bleak and nihilistic, even by the show’s already high standards. What was your reaction to that tonal shift?

Steve Toussaint: I think it was expected. One of the things Ryan [Condal] said to me at the very beginning, when I first got this job and we were doing season one, was: ‘We want to meet the Sea Snake as a man who has everything, and we’re going to slowly, or not so slowly, strip everything away from him.’

Once I started reading the season three scripts, having lost my two children, my grandson and then my wife last season, then seeing that they destroyed his house – his home as well – I was kind of like, ‘Okay, this is par for the course.’ I don’t know if he’s going to end up being a tramp or a man of the streets by the end of this thing. In that sense, it was expected, but it’s still surprising. Then it provides a challenge – an acting challenge. I was looking forward to it.

MH: What does that challenge look like for you? Is it finding levity in that?

ST: Sometimes it’s levity, but I’m trying to show other facets of this man’s character because, as we all know, we’re not all one thing. An awful lot of season one was him going, ‘How can we get close to power? I’ll get my son to marry the princess.’ He was tightly wound up, except for the moments when he was with his wife.

What I was so keen about for the latter end of last season, and then this season, was how he grieved. Also, him having to show vulnerability, reaching out to his illegitimate children, particularly Alyn, played by Abu, who just wants nothing to do with him whatsoever. It’s a shock to him because he’s a man everyone listens to and wants to be around.

When I read the scene just before the battle, where he’s in his cabin and apologises for being a shitty dad, I was like, ‘That’s a big deal for him to apologise.’ The only person he apologises to is his wife, and now she’s no longer there. For him to show that kind of vulnerability… that was what excited me about this season.

MH: What was your reaction when you first heard about the Battle of the Gullet?

ST: It always felt a long way off. I knew there was going to be a battle. At one point they were talking about shooting in South Africa, and that was more interesting to me than the battle itself. I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve never been there before. That’d be great!’

MH: Like Cape Town? [Note: Aquatic series such as One Piece and Black Sails have shot at Cape Town Film Studios.]

ST: I have no idea. They just said South Africa. I just thought of sunshine and blue skies – it’d be great. Then it was going to be Wales. Eventually, [director] Loni [Peristere], Ryan, or someone said to me, ‘Oh no, we’re going to do it on the backlot.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, okay.’

It was only when I read the actual scenes in the episodes that I got a sense of the scale of what they were trying to do.

I asked Loni, ‘How are you going to do this?’ Whenever I’ve heard about things being shot at sea or on the water, it’s always sounded incredibly difficult. We’ve all heard the stories about Waterworld. One of the things Loni said was, ‘Well, we’re going to take a look at Master and Commander.’

MH: I was going to ask – half-seriously and half-jokingly – how many times you watched Master and Commander before this.

ST: [Laughs] Just the once for me. I don’t know about Loni. We looked at that, and then Loni basically took me through what he wanted to shoot, all of the previs, all of the modelling.

What mattered most was the emotional journey of each character through that battle.

I remember asking if he’d ever done anything like this before, and he reeled off a series of TV shows where he’d directed the ‘big battle episode’. So I knew we were in good hands.

When I finally got to see it, it was like, ‘Oh wow. Yeah, you did it, man. You really did.’

MH: When you spoke with us before season one, you mentioned that ambition was Corlys’s driving force. Now in season three, does that still ring true?

ST: No, I don’t think it does. He’s changed. That ambition is part of his core, so it’s always going to be there. It may be that he has ambition for other things.

When we first meet him, he’s all about glorifying himself. Of course, he loves his wife and so forth. But for me, what was key was the changing of the name of his ship in season two, and the line where he says, ‘Well, everything I do now, I do for her.’

Then, in episode two of this season, he says those immortal words: ‘If this be victory, I hope I never see another.’

I like to think he’s reassessing what’s important – the cost of war, the cost of this vaulting ambition, which I think he feels has led to him losing his brother, for example…

Somebody mentioned the scene in episode two where he’s on the beach with his family – his two illegitimate children and his granddaughter – and it occurred to me that’s exactly it: his idea of family has changed, or at least how important family is to him.

Before, I think he invested everything in his relationship with Rhaenys. Whenever I read the scripts, she was the person he was most comfortable with, the person he was most himself around.

Now she’s gone. Who has he got?

He’s beginning to realise the importance of family for its own sake, rather than as a tool to further his ambition.

MH: Do you feel Corlys would have made those strides had he not been forced into this survival mode?

ST: I think that’s true. The only other way he might have arrived where he is now would’ve been if his wife were still alive. She’s the one who says to him, ‘You have to make good with these two boys. It’s not their fault.’

He takes her advice. I often say he doesn’t always take her advice immediately. He’s like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ Then eventually he comes around and says, ‘Yeah, you were right. I will do that.’

MH: Typical man thing, candidly.

ST: [Laughs] Yeah, exactly. I think that’s the only other way he might have reached this conclusion. He’s been shaped by events and everything he’s been through. Having to reassess what he feels has been a great sacrifice for not much reward is bringing him to this new way of thinking, which I think continues to develop throughout the season.

Toussaint as Corlys in a vital House of the Dragon scene in season 3, episode 1.

Corlys meets with Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) in House of the Dragon season 3, episode 3.

MH: The scene you and Abu have in the captain’s cabin feels like the Rosetta Stone for Corlys’s arc this season. What do you remember about shooting it?

ST: We’d been talking about that scene for a while before we filmed it. We have about a month of not quite rehearsals, but conversations. We all come together, read an episode and discuss what the scenes mean.

That was, as you said, the Rosetta Stone. It was the seismic moment for Corlys because he has to show vulnerability. He has to apologise, which is something he doesn’t do, other than to his wife. He doesn’t have to. He’s rich, powerful and respected. But here, he has to.

One of the things I love about the scene is that Corlys sees himself in Alyn. That comes from the scene in season two where Alyn tells him exactly how he feels, what it was like growing up, and so on. All Corlys can do is stand there and take it. There’s a respect between them. Certainly from Corlys’s point of view, anyway.

It was wonderful. I don’t know how many takes we did, but it was enjoyable because we were constantly trying to discover new things.

For me, whenever I’m working on a scene, I try to imagine what happened immediately beforehand. What was Corlys doing before he called Alyn in? Was he rehearsing the speech? Did he already know he was going to apologise? Those are all decisions you make as an actor, and they subtly change the way you play the scene.

We were incredibly lucky because you couldn’t ask for a better scene partner than Abu. And Loni was brilliant too, giving us the space to explore it. I’m really, really proud of that scene.

MH: On the subject of directors, any time I see an episode has been directed by Clare Kilner, I’m immediately locked in. There have been some fantastic directors across Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon – Miguel Sapochnik, Alan Taylor, Loni – but I just love her work. What does she bring as a director?

ST: She’s an absolute dream to work with. One of the best.

None of the directors are bad – that’s not what I’m saying – but she has an extraordinary feel for human connection.

One of the things I often say when people ask, ‘Why is the show so successful?’, is that despite the dragons and all the huge spectacle, it’s always about interpersonal relationships. If you understand that, then you have something successful. Then we can all enjoy the dragons and everything else as well.

MH: After Corlys and Rhaenyra have that big fight in episode three, he leaves as a man who ostensibly has nothing left. What does that mean for Corlys moving forward? Everyone on the show has lost a lot, but I feel he’s lost the most.

ST: Liberating is not quite the right word, but the only thing that he’s concerned about when he leaves is making sure his son is set up. That’s it. Addam apparently is, because he’s a dragonrider – so he should be okay. But he needs to make sure Alyn is set up, too.

Other than that, I don’t think he gives a shit about them. When I read that scene, I remember thinking, ‘His brother was killed for saying that.’

Now, I don’t know that Corlys has a death wish. I think Corlys has a very strong idea of his position, what he’s done, and that’s almost what that scene is. It’s like, ‘I dare you to contradict me.’

One of the things I think motors him through the rest of the season is this sense of rage and indignation, of how much he’s sacrificed and what he’s got in return. For him, that request – recognise my boys – it’s not a big deal. I recognised your two sons as mine, and everybody knew there was no way they were Velaryon, but I did it anyway.

There’s this sense of rage and just the idea of the futility of all of this. That’s the journey he’s on.

MH: What does honour look like for Corlys at this point?

ST: Honour is still all-important to him. It’s why it’s important he gives the boys his name, because that’s all you have. It doesn’t matter. All of the stuff in the Hall of Nine, he loved that because that said who he was.

But if you don’t have your word, you’re nothing.

I don’t think that ever changes for him. It doesn’t matter what I’ve got. I’m still the man I always was, and I still command respect because I am true, I’m honest, and I have integrity.

MH: That’s quite a journey for him, to go from a self-made person to striving for the one thing you can’t get for yourself.

ST: Absolutely. It’s because of the journey he’s been on that he’s found himself here. Four months before this battle, he would’ve been like, ‘No, you go out, you get things, and those things build you up because they’re the sum of all the things that make me the man that I am.’

Well, now he’s seeing that those things, while they’re nice, they’re not that important. It’s like actors and awards. They’re lovely, but winning one doesn’t make you a good actor. It’s the same thing. Sort of. [Laughs]

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

William Goodman is a freelancer writer, focused on all things pop culture, tech, gadgets, and style. He’s based in Washington, DC and his work can also be found at Robb Report, Complex, and GQ. He’s yet to meet a jacket or cardigan he didn’t love. In his free time, he’s probably on Twitter (@goodmanw) or at the movies.