House of the Dragon's Tom Bennett Talks Ulf's Upgrade: 'He's Going To Be a Bit of a Maverick'

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 2, Episode 7. Read at your own risk!]

"I'm a dragon rider, baby!"

It's hard to tell who is more excited about this turn of events for the Fleabottom-born bastard Ulf — the man himself, who just inherited a dragon, or Tom Bennett, the man playing him.

In "The Red Sowing," the seventh episode of House of the Dragon Season 2, Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy) enacts a desperate play to root out possible Targaryen dragon seeds by ferrying candidates to Dragonstone to attempt claiming either Vermithor or Silverwing, the firepower of which she will need for the fight ahead. Almost immediately, it backfires spectacularly as Vermithor incinerates most of her silver-haired options in a matter of seconds. But then Hugh (Kieran Bew), the iron maker from Kings Landing just looking to feed his sick kid, manages to tame the beast with only a touch. Meanwhile, Ulf (Bennett) flees the carnage into the caverns and finds himself in the den of Silverwing, the dragon once ridden by Queen Alysanne, the wife and sister of the late King Jaehaerys I. Accepting he is likely about to be charred to a crisp for awakening the sleeping giant, Ulf instead finds Silverwing submitting to him — a sign of respect in claiming a dragon.

Now, it is a tale of two new dragonriders. We don't see much beyond Hugh's subduing encounter with Vermithor. But in the case of Ulf, his first action as a rider is to take Silverwing for a spin over Kings Landing, a reckless bit of jubilance that draws Aemond (Ewan Mitchell) out of the Red Keep on his dragon Vhagar to tail him. But when Aemond gets within sight of Dragonstone, he's deterred from pursuing any further at the sight of Rhaenyra's growing winged ranks. 

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"No, that was definitely not the sensible play," Bennett told TV Guide about Ulf's joyride. "But maybe Ulf is governed by other emotions. Maybe he is not the most sensible bloke on the planet. But with the joy, and freedom, and power of having a dragon, I think he wanted to do a flyby of The Cock Inn in Kings Landing and show off to his boys below that he wasn't lying."

Ulf's defining trait so far this season has been a willingness to tell anyone who will listen that he is the illegitimate half-brother of the late King Viserys (Paddy Considine) and Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith). The last time he saw his friends in the tavern, he had been boasting about his lineage yet again when the call from Rhaenyra came in. But the prospect of finally proving his Targaryen blood by staring down a dragon suddenly leaves Ulf shuddering with fear.

"Panic sets in and actually he's not sure about anything," Bennett said. "Maybe he was lied to. Maybe he's made it all up. It might not all be true, and now there's a dragon involved that could kill him."

But the gods were on his side upon meeting Silverwing, who just chose a dragon rider that is not only loose in the saddle but also a bit unpredictable in what he might do with such power.

"I think the worry for everybody is that Ulf is Fleabottom through and through," he said. "He's the lowest of the low. He's been stepped on his entire life, and he's very self-serving in order to make his life as amenable as possible. The problem is, if you give someone who is self-serving and has nothing, all the power in the world, you get to see what sort of person he really is. And I think we will get to see what sort of person Ulf really is."

With only his joyride over Kings Landing to go on, Ulf as a dragon rider is unlikely to be similar to the Rhaenyras and the Aemonds of the world. There are bound to be bumps in the road, Bennett said.

"He's going to be a bit of a maverick," he said with a laugh. "You might not want to fly in tandem with him, or in formation with Ulf. Because I think he is probably going to showboat a little. He's going to see what Silverwing can do. He's going to test this baby out."

Bennett had no idea Ulf would end up being a dragon rider when he auditioned for the part. It wasn't until he had landed the role and was in a costume fitting that the news slipped that they were also suiting him up to mount a dragon.

"Someone just casually said, 'We've mocked up your dragon-riding costume as well,'" he recalled. "And I said, 'Oh, I'm riding a dragon?' And they just said, 'Yeah, no one told you?' They definitely hadn't told me, but I figured let's just hang on tight and see what happens."

If Ulf looked stiff and a little wobbly on the back of Silverwing in the climactic scene of the episode, that's because most of that was real on Bennett's part. He said the mechanism that the show uses to simulate dragon riding is like "the biggest, most high-tech bucking bronco you've ever seen" and its sole mission is to knock you off.

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While Ulf doesn't have much time to prepare for his maiden voyage on Silverwing, Bennett said the first lesson he learned as a dragon rider is to do your stretches.

"The only problem was that, in the episode, you can see I do a steep incline and then a steep decline on Silverwing," he said. "So, for the entirety of a day, I was kind of hunched on my knees doing a full yoga backbend. If I do get to fly Silverwing again, I know what yoga poses to do in the two weeks leading up to filming. Because I was broken after that day in the saddle. I felt like the 44-year-old father of three that I am that day."

If and when audiences see Ulf and Silverwing in action again, it is going to look different than anything House of the Dragon has attempted before. That's simply because, as Bennett puts it, Ulf is a bit of fresh air among the Targaryens already waging war on each other.

"I don't think you'll ever have seen a dragonrider like Ulf because, for one thing, he is one of the only characters in the show that ever smiles — let alone laughs," he said. "He derides a great amount of joy from riding Silverwing. Most of the other dragonriders are doing sexy Blue Steel, 'I'm flying a dragon' acting. And I'm doing, 'I can't believe I'm joyriding a dragon' acting. Ulf is taking something for a spin that he should not own. But I think that since he has come from nothing, Ulf will make this power count for him."

House of the Dragon Season 2 airs Sundays at 9/8c on HBO. Episodes are available to stream on Max.