‘House of the Dragon’ Star Matthew Needham Reveals There Are Deleted Scenes That Explain Larys’s So-Called “Foot Fetish” With Alicent

If there’s one character HBO‘s House of the Dragon Season 1 really didn’t do a ton to humanize, it was probably Larys Strong (Matthew Needham). The clubfooted character skulks in the shadows, schemes without remorse, and stunned viewers by seemingly forcing Queen Alicent (Olivia Cooke) into a degrading arrangement where he’d masturbate to her bare feet. However the wildest Larys moment came when he took Alicent’s comments that she wished her father, Ser Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans), was back in King’s Landing to advise her way too far — even for Alicent. Larys killed the King’s current Hand and heir in one fiery fell swoop. The twist? The men Larys murdered were his own father and brother: Lord Lyonel Strong (Gavin Spokes) and Ser Harwin Strong (Ryan Corr).

So what exactly drives Larys Strong? And did we get the full picture of the perfidious spymaster in House of the Dragon Season 1? And what about those persistent rumors he is a greenseer skinchanging to, uh, the rats?

When Decider sat down with House of the Dragon star Matthew Needham during a recent in-person roundtable interview, we weren’t just struck by how kind and thoughtful his answers were, but how often he mentioned that key scenes and lines were cut for time from the HBO show’s first season.

When Consequence’s Liz Shannon Miller asked Needham about the themes of trauma on the show, he said, “I mean, I always thought part of the reason that Larys is the way Larys is is because he’s come from a very traumatic background.”

“There was [a deleted scene], it didn’t make the show sadly, but the first time you meet him, he is being harassed and abused by people because of his disability. And you get a sense that that’s how he grew up. Every day for him was something traumatic like that,” Needham said. “I think one of his things is to sort of re-inflict that harm on the world, the world outside of himself.”

One person he seems to want to hurt in particular is apparently Alicent Hightower. When Decider asked Needham about the shocking scene where we see Alicent mechanically take off her shoes so Larys can masturbate, he said that the context of that moment was potentially lost in translation on screen.

“That’s another one where sort of, you know, there was stuff that didn’t make the cut unfortunately,” Needham said. “When we discussed it, it was about — because he can’t touch her, but it’s a way of making her feel as ashamed for that part of her body as he does for his.”

“That does not translate completely, but that’s okay.”

“Obviously if you cut like a line here and a line there and everything sort of ends up just like, you know, ‘It’s Tuesday!’” Needham said, implying the moment was a mundane weekly ritual built into the relationship and not an even bigger power move. “But it’s all good.”

“I think one of his things is to sort of re-inflict that harm on the world, the world outside of himself.”

Matthew Needham

Even though Needham seemed to be well-versed on the fan conversation about his character, he shared that for his “own sanity,” he doesn’t go online.

“I can’t do the online thing. Just I can’t. And also I’m just crap at it, so I don’t, but people come up and tell me a lot about a lot of wild things,” he said.”

Decider asked Needham point blank if he had become privy to the popular theory that as a descendent of the First Men, like the Stark family, Larys might have the same greenseer ability as Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) or the ability to wight into animals like the Stark children and their direwolves. Specifically, some have speculated that the incessant shots of rats creeping around the Red Keep was Larys keeping tabs on the comings and goings of the Hightowers and Targaryens.

“People have come up [to me with that theory], yeah,” Needham said. “Oh, it’s hard. I can, I can neither confirm nor deny it. But this is what is so cool about the show and so cool about the fans is just how invested they are and they’re so enthusiastic about the world.”

“And I’m like, ‘Oh, okay!’ You know, but I can’t say for certain. Also because it would take away the enjoyment because if I was like, ‘No!’ that sort of ruins it,” Needham said before imagining how awkward it would be if he point blank shot any fan theory down. “But it’s great. I love it.”

So Matthew Needham continues to stay mum on the “Larys as greenseer warging into rats” theory, but he’s more than happy to tease several key Larys moments that wound up on the cutting room floor in Season 1.

Here’s hoping that when House of the Dragon Season 2 premieres on HBO and Max on Sunday, June 16, we get the full Larys cut.