Why ‘House of Dragon’ Fans Love Simon Russell Beale’s Strong

The legendary theater actor is commanding House of the Dragon stans’ attention and making a dour series more tolerable to watch.
Photo: Ollie Upton/HBO

House of the Dragon’s Ser Simon Strong is a bit of a diva. You might pick up on this if you watch the show, where week to week, Simon gently but firmly puts Daemon Targaryen (played by Matt Smith) in his place. But you wouldn’t understand the extent of his iconography until you logged onto Twitter or TikTok, where a remix of Fedde Le Grand and Ida Corr’s “Let Me Think About It” — a 15-year-old fidget-house bop popular on fancams of K-pop bands — blasts over a clip of Simon calling Daemon the king … consort, the latter pejorative hitting like a drop on the dance floor.

Simon’s — and by extension, the actor behind him, Simon Russell Beale’s — fancam treatment is funny in part because of the plainness of his character. The knight of House Strong is no more dripped out than any other desperate leader of a contested territory on House of the Dragon (perhaps less so because he lives in a crumbling castle), and yet all the more attention is being paid to his embroidered velvet sleeves and big chain. He is generally soft-spoken and thoughtful (he’s not fighting in any dragon battles or wielding a sword) during the average six minutes he spends onscreen during any given episode, yet his graceful bitchiness has skyrocketed him to extremely-online favorite.

Game of Thrones audiences have always been quick to anoint a new meme king. Rarely were these the splashy, younger members of the cast so much as they were esteemed actors from the British stage and screen. Consider Dame Diana Rigg’s turn as Lady Olenna Tyrell, one of few characters brave enough to take swipes at the ruling Lannisters. Or Jonathan Pryce’s High Sparrow, who emerged as a late-show villain. My personal favorite was Jim Broadbent’s Archmaester Ebrose, who shamelessly loved “STYle.” The same thing is happening now with Simon Russell Beale’s Ser Simon Strong, drip lord and host at Harrenhal.

Beale is not only a beloved supporting actor, with turns in Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin and the late Terence Davies’s Benediction, but a consummate and legendary actor of the stage, on par with the likes of Ian McKellen or Michael Gambon, known for practically reinventing Hamlet in the early 2000s. His new fandom is deeply validating to legions of theater patrons who have been saying the same things about Beale — who is of course neither young nor splashy, or on social media, or even doing a ton of press for the show — without EDM.

The obvious reason Beale is running away with our affections now is because he’s bringing a rare bit of levity to the otherwise dour House of the Dragon. Couched in between intense moments of physical Targaryen violence are the verbal swipes between Daemon and Simon, granting the series a level of self-awareness — like it knows you need the comic relief. Daemon raged and griped through the show’s first season — an enfant terrible now supplanted by his nephew — and his most recent tantrum led him to flee his niece Rhaenyra when she needed him most. Daemon now needs Simon’s Harrenhal and the house’s support in his campaign against their rivals, the Greens; in order to get it, he’s going to have to play ball with Ser Simon, who certainly isn’t making it easy. When we see Daemon, he’s either in the throes of a haunted dream or having his ass handed to him by Simon (sometimes both). That Smith himself said ahead of this season that he was most excited for fans to see Beale on the show speaks to the level of respect and admiration the latter actor carries in the industry.

Three episodes removed from the season-two finale, the series has effectively established an expectation that the second Beale hits the screen, it’s time for him to diva out. It can be difficult on sets that big and in costumes that heavy to shine through the muck of large-ensemble fantasy-television programming, but Beale’s years of experience and fine-toothed precision allow a character like Simon to look and feel easy — easy to watch, easy to root for, easy to edit.