Abubakar Salim and Clinton Liberty don’t look much like brothers – they are both over 6ft, but while Salim is stocky and steadfast, Liberty is slender and restless. And they don’t talk like brothers: Salim is plain-spoken and direct, with the accentless English of Welwyn Garden City, while Liberty’s speech is a whirlwind of superlatives, delivered in a broad east Ireland brogue. Meeting them is a bit like interviewing a double act familiar from a thousand cop shows: the jaded veteran and the wide-eyed newcomer.
Yet, not only do the pair play bastard brothers in the new series of House of the Dragon, but the experience was so intense that they have become chosen family in real life. “It was a journey we started together,” says 26-year-old Liberty, for whom House of the Dragon represents a significant step up in scale after grounded Irish dramas such as Normal People and Holding. “And we bonded over how crazy it all was. Every day we’d think we were getting used to it, then it was just like … what is going on? Is this real? Are you sure?”
Exactly how their characters in House of the Dragon will fit into the big picture remains unclear, at least to those who haven’t read George RR Martin’s weighty source novel, Fire and Blood. Alyn is a sailor, a consummate seaman whose moment of glory came when he rescued his Lord, his Captain and – it’s hinted pretty strongly – his father, Lord Corlys, from drowning. Addam, meanwhile, is a shipwright, gainfully employed in the harbours of Driftmark. Both characters are more down-to-earth, more working class (if such a term existed in Westeros) than the Royals and blue-bloods we’re used to encountering.
For 31-year-old Salim, a seasoned player in big-budget shows such as the historical drama Jamestown and Ridley Scott’s sci-fi series Raised By Wolves, the partnership with Liberty rekindled a love for his profession. “I may not have seen it all,” he admits, “but I’ve seen enough to be like: ‘OK, here’s another cool set.’ I wasn’t necessarily jaded, but it’s like you’re eating chocolate for the 100th time. You know you’re going to enjoy it. With Clinton, it was like this was the first time he’d ever had chocolate. He was in absolute awe. That excitement was really infectious.”
He is not exaggerating: months after shooting wrapped, Liberty is still giddy. “The scale was so massive,” he beams, recalling the bustling Driftmark harbour set at Leavesden studios where the pair filmed their early scenes. “I mean, they built a full-size ship. And a whole village. For the first few days, I just had to give myself permission to nerd out. It was everything I wanted to do, as a kid who dreamed of being an actor.”
Indeed, for both men, making the journey across the Narrow Sea to Westeros has been a long-held ambition. “The world George RR Martin has conjured is very much my vibe,” says Salim. “I grew up on Lord of the Rings and Discworld, I’ve got all the Dune books. These stories that transport you into these epic spaces but still deal with very human politics, that’s my jam. They put everyone on a level playing field.”
For Liberty, it is even more straightforward. “I’d have been happy to play a tree on House of the Dragon,” he says. “I worked with Conleth Hill [who played Lord Varys in Game of Thrones] on Holding, and the whole time we were filming I was asking him about it. What’s Kit Harington like? What’s the world like? I was such a fan. And I’d do these affirmations. I used to wake up every morning and say: ‘One day I’m going to play a lead character in an HBO show. I’m going to be a character like Jon Snow.’ I said it every day for two years. I was just talking to the wind, really. Then lo and behold … ”
He’s not the first of his peers to make a splash, though: not only did Liberty play a small role alongside newly minted megastar Paul Mescal in Normal People, but the pair went to Trinity College Dublin together. “I always knew he was going to be a star,” says Liberty. “Everyone else said, ‘Oh, that’s just Paul’, but I was like, this guy’s going to be huge. He was in the third year when I was in the first, and as first year students you’re only supposed to see the third year show once. But somehow I found a way to see it multiple times, just so I could watch Paul. I remember thinking, the reaction I’m having to him right now, that’s the way I want people to look at me.”
If he were to reach that level of fame, would he be as comfortable with it as Mescal seems to be? Liberty hoots. “No! I’m not going to lie. Paul is authentically just a laid-back kind of guy. I know who I am, and I’m not laid-back. I’d be having a ball, going crazy.”
Just as he did when he got the news that he had been cast in House of the Dragon. “I lost my mind,” he says. “Lost. My. Mind. It was a bit of a dark time, I’d been to so many big auditions, getting down to the final rounds. It’s right there, you can feel it, taste it, smell it, then it slips away. So when I got the call, I just started running. I couldn’t contain the energy. It was nighttime on some random street, and I know there must have been people watching me and thinking, who’s this crazy dude on the phone, freaking out? You know, a lot of actors are very cool, very chill. That’s not who I am.”
As the living embodiment of “very cool, very chill”, Salim had a rather more restrained reaction to landing the role of Alyn. “It was a moment of enjoyment,” he admits, “then a second moment of OK, now I’ve got to take on this beast of a role.” Perhaps it helps that screen acting isn’t Salim’s only creative outlet: he is also a video game developer, parlaying his successful career as a voiceover artist on the likes of Assassin’s Creed and World of Warcraft into his very own games company, Surgent Studios. The company’s first game, Tales of Kenzera: Zau, was designed and developed by Salim, and released earlier this year.
For Salim, the parallels between acting and game development could not be clearer. “It’s all world-building,” he says. “Jumping into these fantastical worlds, be it through a video game or a TV show, and using that to explore human emotions and human truth. My game is all about the journey of grief, it was inspired by the loss of my father. Then in House of the Dragon, my character experiences the loss of a parental figure in a different way, which is really interesting.”
Other parallels between the worlds of TV and video games are less welcome. Salim recently posted a video on X railing against the racism still rife in gaming, and he is well aware that similar attitudes exist in television. “It’s been said before, but there’s this idea that you can suspend your disbelief with dragons, but when it comes to a Black guy with white dreads you can’t handle it?” he says. “You know, football was rife with racism, and it still is, but now you’ll get your season pass banned, you’ll get kicked out because it’s no longer tolerated. I think we need more of that for artists and creatives.”
Overall, though, he has been heartened by the response from the House of the Dragon fans, and is still buoyed up by his experience working with Liberty. “There are so many cool people out there who love this world, and that’s the thing to focus on,” he says. “You know, it’s very easy to get bogged down with any kind of work, to find elements to have a whine about. Ugh, I’ve got to rock up at 5am. Ugh, I need to eat this chicken and broccoli. But I’ll always keep close to my heart the memory of seeing Clinton on set for the first time, seeing his enjoyment and just being like: ‘Yeah, this is actually pretty cool.’ I’ll always thank him for that.”
House of the Dragon season two airs on Sky Atlantic every Monday and is available to stream on NOW.
