Benjamin Evan Ainsworth may not be a household name yet, but the 17-year-old British actor has already appeared in Netflix's The Haunting of Bly Manor and voiced Pinocchio in the live-action remake. His breakout role, however, has been Daeron Targaryen in season three of House of the Dragon – the youngest son of Viserys Targaryen and a pawn in the Hightower plot to usurp the Iron Throne.
Cast as Link
Now he is set to play Link, the sword-wielding hero of the upcoming Legend of Zelda movie. Speaking to Metro, he said: “It’s really exciting. It’s such an honour to play such an iconic character and be part of two amazing worlds, which I am in awe of, really.”
He added: “I can’t speak too much on the film, but I think it’s super exciting. I think it was a similar first reaction to House of the Dragon. It’s all very exciting, but it’s also almost daunting. Filming was a lovely experience, and everyone was just lovely.”
The Daeron auditions
Reflecting on landing the role of Daeron, Benjamin recalled: “I remember it feeling surreal and exciting, and it was a little bit scary as well when you’re looking at the prospect of a huge show that I’ve admired for so long. I was so fortunate to go through the audition process, let alone get the role, just because I got to meet Ryan; I got to do a read with Freddie Fox and Fabian Frankel. Just to act with them, even as an exercise in the auditioning process, was wonderful.”
He also said that during the table read for season three, he was blown away by how warm and welcoming everyone on set was.
Working with James Norton
Of his onscreen partnership with James Norton’s Ormund Hightower, Benjamin said: “I think you’ll be glad to know he’s not as horrible in person as Ormund. He’s lovely; he’s a tremendous actor and an awesome performer to work with – you can really just follow him through a scene.”
“As a person, though, he’s just fun; he doesn’t take himself too seriously. We’ll be doing quite serious scenes, but between takes, we’ll be having a laugh. I remember him, Freddie and I, in episode six… between scenes, we were just singing songs. James and Freddie are both great people, despite playing kind of very twisted characters.”
Daeron’s twisted bond
On Daeron and Ormund’s relationship, Benjamin explained: “Ormund is a father figure, and he has been for most of Daeron’s life, and so, it’s clearly had an influence over Daeron and who he is. It’s one of those relationships where he can recognise that it’s twisted because he has a relationship with someone like Gwayne. His mother’s so far away; his mother’s a memory, and he does want affection and love, and so trying to find that, balance, I suppose and find like a little bit of a coming of age story was, was really cool.”
He would not be drawn on Daeron’s future in the series, though he admitted to reading Fire and Blood, the book House of the Dragon is based on. “I was very interested in reading it because [Daeron is] learned, and the character is a good student, so I wanted to learn the Targaryen history and the backstory of Aegon the Conqueror,” he said. “But I didn’t want to skip forward or make any presuppositions about who this character becomes because I think it’s important that we see his struggle as he comes of age before the events unfold. So I stopped myself before it went past the events of this season, which is fun because I’ve got something to look forward to, I guess.”
House of the Dragon series three is available to watch now on NOW and Sky.
