Category: Worldwide

There is nothing wrong with pinching a few pennies here and there. Most people on a budget or fixed income become really good at learning where they can save money but frugality isn’t something you consider when thinking of millionaires.

Yacht trips in the Mediterranean, swanky dinners on plates that cost more than people’s rent payments and extravagant shopping sprees are all things that come to mind when thinking of the uber-rich. Very seldomly would anyone equate frugality to extreme wealth, but that’s likely because they didn’t know about Hetty Green.

Henrietta (“Hetty”) Howland Robinson was born in 1834 to a wealthy Quaker family in New Bedford, Massachusetts where she was raised mostly by her grandparents. Her grandfather and father amassed their wealth through whaling, and according to the Forgotten Newsmakers, she was an expert on stocks and bonds by age 15.

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Green’s expertise didn’t come by through her genuine interest at first. Due to her grandfather’s poor eyesight, he had the young girl read the financial news to him daily. Recently the heiress has come to modern public consciousness after her story was shared on different social media platforms highlighting her extreme money saving techniques.

The Quaker woman never knew poverty as she was born into millionaire status in the 1800s, but you wouldn’t know that from her spending habits. In the social media post it mentions that she never purchased a new pair of underwear after learning to mend them at the age of 16. Until her death, Green was wearing the same pairs underwear she had worn since her teen years.

In another truly mystifying supposed factoid the wealthy woman shopped around for the best price to have her son’s broken leg set. Her delay in medical treatment for her son resulted in him having to get his leg amputated. Though, this part of the story has been disputed by Roberta Sawyer who spent her childhood on the Green’s estate tells South Coast Today, “Hetty’s own daughter, Sylvia Wilkes, told a completely different story. The truth is that Hetty Green went around with her son for three days trying to find a doctor who felt he could save Ned’s leg instead of amputating it.”

According to Wilkes much of the information on Green seems to be sourced from the book “The Day They Shook the Plum Tree,” which she calls “mistruths” in 2011. But the bulk of the claims about her frugal nature seem to be true according to books, multiple articles, and a 1905 character study written about the woman. Green learned to rely on left overs while in boarding school, wore the same black dress for years and dressed her children in secondhand clothes.

The woman’s spending habits are what landed her in the Guinness Book for being the “world’s greatest miser.” Looking outside of her tight fisted nature, she was actually a powerhouse of an individual. She not only had her own bank account before women were legally allowed to open their own accounts, she was respected in the financial world by giants on Wall Street.

Green was a woman in a man’s world who not only inherited wealth but amassed her own wealth through her strict budgeting and her ability to navigate stocks. Maybe should be remembered as a financial pioneer ahead of her time instead of her ability to hold on to a dollar. “Hetty: The Genius and Madness of America’s First Female Tycoon” is attempting to do just that, highlighting the woman’s business sense not just her eccentric nature.

Green was so savvy with her investments that the millionaire had to bail out investors on Wall Street. She foresaw the “Knickerbocker crisis” of 1907 and when John Pierpont Morgan (yeah, that J.P. Morgan) called the greatest minds in finance to help him figure out how to save the economy, Green was the only woman at the table.

She bailed out The New York Central Railroad with a loan according to Yahoo Finance, which cited quotes from the 1916 Literary Digest. Green explains in one of the quotes that she knew the chaos was coming and did her part to help others without taking advantage of the situation. So much for the stingy miser label.

“When the crash came I had money, and I was one of the very few who really had it. The others had their ‘securities’ and their ‘values.’ I had the cash and they had to come to me,” she said.

Yahoo Finance highlights that she loaned the New York City government $1.1 million at the height of the 1907 panic and just months before she loaned them $4.5 million.

“Those to whom I loaned money got it at 6%. I might just as easily have secured 40%,” she explained. “Never in my life—no matter what has been said against me—have I practiced usury, and no one knows it better than the wealthy men who have had business dealings with me.”

There you have it, Hetty Green, The World’s Greatest Miser, investment tycoon, business woman and multimillionaire who turns out to not be as stingy as people made her out to be.

We can try to be the hippest, savviest, most progressive adults of all time, and still, there will inevitably be certain quirks younger generations have that just baffle us. Just think of it as a badge of honor. You’ve made it far enough in life to say “kids these days…”

And let’s face it, since Gen Zers and Gen Alphas were born into a drastically different world than their millennial, Gen X and certainly boomer counterparts, it’s understandable that a few things are going to seem foreign.

Then again, maybe some things, like this wretched Skibidi Toilet business, are just plain weird.

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Recently, older generations banded together on Reddit to share some of the more perplexing trends that younger folks are taking part in. Below are some of the best contributions.

Give them a read. It might make you feel old, but also less alone.

1. “I guess there’s, like, elementary school-aged kids with full skincare routines now? That’s wild…” —u/retrosnot86

2. “That they use phones instead of laptops. I use my phone a bit, but it’s hard to imagine it being my only computer. I need at least 20 inches of screen, a trackball, and a keyboard with physical buttons just to think properly. I don’t want to budget my battery to last all day if an important text comes through. I want my internet signals sent over a hard wire. When my computer stops working, I want to open it up and swap the broken part with a better one.” —u/gameryamen

3. “All the self-labeling. When I was young, we avoided labels at all costs!” —u/1mamapajama

4. “I find many younger people to be very fearful. Hyper-fixating on the worst possible outcomes even though the actual chance is so low it’s not worth worrying about.”—u/sonicfluff

5. “Making fun of kids for ‘no show’ or ‘ankle’ socks. What on earth is that about?” —u/Tangboy50000

6. “They are allowing every one of their friends on Snapchat to know their location at all times. My 23-year-old coworker and her friends are constantly revoking and then reinstating their visible location depending on whether they’re happy or mad with each other. If someone notices that they can’t see where another person is, they’ll bring it up, wondering what they did to upset them. Her best friend will ask her friend to check her boyfriend’s location and whichever friend he told her he’d be with to make sure they match.

At least I can kinda understand family members knowing, but even then, my siblings don’t need to know where I am at all times, and my parents should maybe stop constantly checking once I hit 18. 21 surely. IDK, I guess if you grow up with it, you don’t think it’s weird. I’m 43, and I certainly didn’t grow up with people who didn’t have the ability to know where I was at all times unless I told them or called them.”—u/CallejaFairey

7. “Not dating someone because of the phone they have…”—u/SaveusJebus

8. “Binge-watching short videos compiled so you never watch anything with a plot or storyline. Just tons of 10–60 second videos, and most of them are awful.”—u/hey_nonny_mooses

9. “Vaping. Isn’t it clear by now that inhaling fumes is not really a good idea?”—u/LordGigu

via GIPHY

10. “That literacy rates are plummeting.” —u/Soren_Camus1905

u/mbbysky added:

“Part of it is also media literacy. Literacy isn’t just reading, it’s understanding context and the target audience of a piece of media (which may NOT be you, and this is ok) Shit like TikTok often lacks nuance AND is catered directly to the user via algorithms, so it’s harder to understand that not ALL the content you consume has to be geared toward you and all the things YOU like. So now… [when] some new movie isn’t something you perfectly align with and enjoy…you’re convinced it’s incorrect and shouldn’t be like that, when in reality it was just meant for someone else who DOES enjoy what it’s about. All of this makes reading more difficult, because the clues…are often subtle and not explicit in good works of literature (it’s part of what makes them good, imo).”

11. “Committing crimes as part of social media trends. Especially the challenge of licking ice cream at the store and putting it back. That’s a straight-up health code violation.” —u/Heroic-Forger

…and on that note…

12. “The popularity of ‘nuisance streamers’ with younger folks. I don’t find being a public nuisance even a little bit entertaining or funny, especially when it’s being filmed. Also just in general the trend of filming, photographing and trying to make “content” out of their entire life in some vain hope of becoming internet famous. I don’t get it. Last thing i’d ever want to do is have my entire life posted on the internet.” —u/system_error_02

13. “I’ve trained three co-workers in their early 20s who don’t use the shift key to capitalize letters. They hit caps lock, type the letter to be capitalized, and then hit caps lock again. I can’t wrap my head around it.” —u/mowglimg

14. “That they’re bringing back those thin ’90s brows again. It seems it’s a lesson we all must learn the hard way.” —u/dontaskwhatitmeans

15. “Kids making fun of other kids because they don’t have a specific water tumbler. It sounds like somebody is trying to parody ‘making fun of other kids for having the wrong brand of clothes or phone.'” —u/shf500

16. “Refusing to learn to drive. I understand not wanting to, preferring to live where you don’t have to because of good walkability/transit/likability, etc. But just being unwilling to learn at all? It’s an important life skill, and there might be an emergency where you have to!” —u/Beruthiel999

17. “Making every phone call via speakerphone, especially when holding the phone directly next to the side of their head because they can’t hear.”—u/veni_vidi_vici47

18. “Getting addicted to nicotine. I thought younglings would be a little less foolish than we were.” —u/computer_crisps_dos

19. “I listened to a 23-year-old (more than a decade younger than me) say she wanted to start ‘preventative Botox.’…Girl…” —u/Kholzie

And last but not least:

20. “Broccoli haircuts.” —u/Johnny_Menace

With Donald Trump threatening to reverse Roe v. Wade upon taking office, the need to defend women’s reproductive rights has never been more urgent. As other writers have pointed out, pro-life fanatics have the power of positive connotation on their side and use this advantage to demean the valid arguments of pro-choice advocates.

I mean, who would ever claim to be in opposition to life? Only, equating zygotes with adult human beings fails to recognize the science behind conception, as Bill Nye points out in an older video that has recently gained new relevancy.

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In the video, you can see how frustrated Nye is explaining why abortion rights aren’t something we should be debating in the first place. After a brief explanation of how conception occurs, the science educator proves how little our laws have to do with reason or logic.

“You cannot help but notice — and I’m not the first guy to notice — you have a lot of men of European descent passing these extraordinary laws based on ignorance,” he says, adding, “It’s just a reflection of a deep scientific lack of understanding and you literally apparently don’t know what you’re talking about.” We can only imagine how frustrated he — along with every other advocate of logic — must be feeling now.

While anti-abortion zealots aren’t typically eager to consider science or reason, this video could potentially sway those who are on the fence about impeding on women’s rights. And while it shouldn’t take a white guy to explain why women’s rights are human rights, sadly, few people seem to listen when the plea for respect comes from women — despite the fact that these draconian laws only affect them.

Still, Nye and other logic-lovers are willing to hear you out, pro-lifers. If the argument truly comes down to protecting children and not depriving women of basic rights, there are several discussions worth having. For instance, instead of focusing on the rights of unborn babies, perhaps we could put our resources into protecting the children that already exist. We take it for granted that real, live children don’t enjoy the same human rights that adults do — an archaic way of thinking that time and time again puts kids in harm’s way. By actively fueling global warming, we deprive today’s children from having any semblance of a dependable future.

Now, more than ever, it’s imperative that we focus on the facts. By relying on scientific evidence to guide a course of action, we can respect one another’s beliefs without infringing on one another’s rights. It’s really not that hard. Take it from The Science Guy himself: “Be objective about this. We have other problems to solve, everybody.”

This article originally appeared on 11.23.16

It’s back-to-school time (yaaassss!), but that means it’s also the time when you have to tackle those super-long, super-specific school supply lists (uggghhhh!).

You know what I’m talking about — the 15-plus-items-long list of things your kids need for school.

As a bonus, they’re often brand-name specific. Seriously. Because Elmer’s glue is apparently just that different from generic store brand glue.

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Based on the venting ( “OMG, everyone is sold out of pre-sharpened Dixon Ticonderoga #2 pencils!”) and cries for help I’m seeing from my fellow parents on social media (“Where did you find three wide-ruled draw-and-write composition books?” — OK, I admit that was my question), a lot of our public school kiddos are being given supply lists quite similar to this one:

Sample school supply list created from actual lists I’ve collected. Some items have been switched between lists to protect the innocent.

While many public schools send these lists to parents, in certain states they’re “requests” not “requirements” (even when not clearly presented that way) because some states cannot legally require students to provide their own school supplies.

Optional or required, however, these school supply lists are important.

I know, I know — lots of us parents have many feelings about them, like:

• We didn’t have to buy a specific list of supplies when we were kids (walking uphill both ways, two miles, in the snow).
• This is public school, not private school! Can’t the glue sticks come out of my taxes?
• This list is so name-brand specific. Are Elmer’s glue sticks reallllyyyy that superior to these cheaper, generic ones?
• Seriously?? So many glue sticks?! Just … what?

And we can all agree that it’s not right that public school budgets are regularly slashed and aren’t big enough to cover the basic necessities essential for our kids’ success. (You know, like pencils.) And in some cases, budgets are misused, and that’s not right, either.

But as much as parents dread shopping for school supplies, our children’s teachers probably dread having to ask.

Katie Sluiter, a mom of three and teacher of 13 years, shares in parents’ frustrations about supplies — just from a different perspective. “I struggle every single August with having to ask for [supply] donations. I hate it,” she says.

She’d love to stop asking parents to bring in a combined total of 800 pencils and 1,000 glue sticks and just buy them herself. But as a teacher, she simply cannot afford to do it.

“I hate that we have two full-time salaried workers in our house. … I have an advanced degree, and we are still living paycheck to paycheck. It feels shameful to have to ask every. single. year. for donations. Teachers don’t want to ask for handouts. We just want to teach.”

“Teachers don’t want to ask for handouts. We just want to teach.” — Katie Sluiter

Nicole Johansen, a mom of two who was a teacher for 12 years, echoes Sluiter’s sentiments. She cites never ending budget cuts as well as the need to stretch other funds, like PTO-raised money, further and further as the reasons supply lists exist and adds, “It is frustrating knowing that schools should be appropriately allotted funds for supplies — this said from the parent AND teacher standpoint.”

So most of us are on the same page here. Class supply lists are the pits … for everyone!

The most significant thing to remember, though, is that if your budget allows, it’s important to purchase the items on the list.

If you’re not purchasing the supplies, it’s very likely your child’s teacher will have to — with his or her own money.

Image by Thinkstock.

And we’ve already established that teacher salaries aren’t cutting it when it comes to taking care of their families and their students.

And maybe it’s not so much that teachers have to spend their own paychecks on classroom supplies, but they want to because an overwhelming majority of teachers genuinely care about their students.

“I wish all parents knew how much teachers love and sacrifice for their students,” Johansen said. “Pretty much all teachers I know will be spending for their classroom despite having to cut back the grocery bill for their family.”

“I wish all parents knew how much teachers love and sacrifice for their students.” — Nicole Johansen

“No, we don’t have to spend all that time and money on our classrooms, but it makes it a quality experience when your children have things like science experiments, books, art supplies, and a comfortable, cozy classroom environment.”

OK, but seriously, what do they do with all of those glue sticks?!

I know I’m not the only one who opened up that list when my daughter was in first grade, choked on my coffee, and exclaimed, “THREE DOZEN GLUE STICKS?! What, are the kids eating them? [Probably. Little kids eat all kinds of gross stuff.] Are the teachers selling them for profit? [I wouldn’t blame them. See above about teachers’ salaries].”

Image by Thinkstock.

“We glue kids’ mouths shut,” Sluiter told me when I asked.

“Totally kidding. They last like 12 seconds … [and] no matter how vigilant we are in supervising the picking up and putting away of supplies, each time we get the tub of glue sticks out, there are about three to five dead soldiers and lone caps rolling in the bottom of the bin.”

(I love teachers with senses of humor!)

But back to the actual issue.

My friend Shannon summed up the class supply list conundrum perfectly, if bluntly:

She wants parents who can budget in school supplies without experiencing a financial burden to “quit complaining about some of the items being communal. Vote for politicians who will quit cutting money from schools. I don’t remember my parents having to buy 20 glue sticks, but I certainly don’t think any more should come out of teachers’ pockets.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

This story originally appeared on 08.11.15.

There are now four films in the Bad Boys franchise, because, as the saying goes, they are bad boys for life, so there is no stopping them now. The series includes Bad Boys, Bad Boys II, Bad Boys For Life and the latest flick, Bad Boys: Ride or Die.

The Bad Boys series follows Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as two Miami detectives who investigate various drug-related crimes. The latest sequel follows the duo as they attempt to clear the name of their late Captain, Conrad Howard (Joe Pantoliano). Rhea Seehorn, Vanessa Hudgens, Eric Dane, Alexander Ludwig, and Paola Núñez also star in the newest installment.

In order to prepare for number four, all three of the previous installments are available to stream on Hulu, while the Bad Boys: Ride or Die is still in theaters.

As for even more Bad Boy content, a spinoff series starring Jessica Alba and Gabrielle Union called L.A.’s Finest ran for two seasons from 2019-2020. You can stream that show on Tubi.

Will there be another installment after Bad Boys: Ride or Die? Possibly! Smith has one condition: he only wants to return if the story is good enough. He told Entertainment Weekly, “I never wanted to be one of those dudes who make sequels just because people will go. I want to make them because there is something to say and the characters have a place that they’re developing to that will be interesting and fun to watch and maybe even a little helpful. Is there something that can happen in these characters’ lives that is worth asking people to go to a movie theater for? And with this movie, the answer is a resounding yes.”

It seems like we really will have these bad boys on our screens for life… or until Hulu takes the movies off.

We are just weeks away from Camila Cabello‘s fourth album, C,XOXO. Ahead of the album, Cabello has teased a new sound. She has released the Playboi Carti collab “I Luv It,” as well as the Lil Nas X-assisted “He Knows.” As the tracks indicate, Cabello is playing with more rhythmic, electronic, and dance-ready sounds.

C,XOXO is probably her most collab-heavy album, as revealed by the tracklist, which Cabello shared to social media today (June 12). In addition to the previously released Carti and Lil Nas X collabs, Drake will feature on the song “Hot Uptown” and the follow-up interlude, “Uuugly.” Fellow Miami natives JT and Yung Miami will also appear on the album, in the song “Dade County Dreaming.” It is worth noting that the once City Girls are listed simply as JT and Yung Miami on the tracklist, indicating that this could possibly be their last feature as a duo.

You can see the full tracklist below.

1. “I Luv It” feat. Playboi Carti
2. “Chanel No. 5”
3. “Pink XOXO”
4. “He Knows” Feat. Lil Nas X
5. “Twentysomethings”
6. “Dade County Dreaming” Feat. JT and Yung Miami
7. “Koshi XOXO”
8. “Hot Uptown” Feat. Drake
9. “Uuugly” Feat. Drake
10. “Dream-Girls”
11. “305TilIDie”
12. “B.O.A.T”
13. “Pretty When I Cry”
14. “June Gloom”

C,XOXO is out 6/28 via Interscope. Find more information here.

Avatar: The Last Airbender was a huge hit for Netflix, and it was quickly renewed for two more seasons. You know what that means? The introduction of the best character (imo) from the original animated series: Toph.

Netflix has put out a casting call to find someone to play the blind earthbender. “Character is mid-late teens, blind, female, Asian,” it reads. “She is sassy, confident, and unfiltered. For most of her life her strength and formidable earthbending skills have been suppressed, but now on the run as the Avatar’s earthbending master she is uninhibited to become the fierce warrior she believes she is inside. Dance and/or martial arts experience a plus. Shooting anticipated for Fall 2024.” Actors who are “blind or low vision” are encouraged to reach out to the casting agents at [email protected].

In the Nickelodeon series, Toph (it’s worth repeating how much she rules) is voiced by Michaela Jill Murphy, who previously predicted that she’ll be a “mess” when Toph is introduced in the live-action remake.

The future Toph actress will join Gordon Cormier as Aang, Kiawentiio as Katara, Ian Ousley as Sokka, Dallas Liu as Prince Zuko, and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee as Uncle Iroh in season two, which does not currently have a premiere date. But based on the fall 2024 shooting start, expect it sometime in 2025.

(Via Forbes)

Sometimes it’s hard for those of us that love sports and spend a lot of our time in the sports world to remember just how many people are completely disinterested in sports.

We get glimpses of that at times through things like viral Jeopardy! clips of people failing to come up with fairly basic sports trivia answers, but the reminders almost always feel stunning to those of us that live in it. The latest example comes in the form of an entertainment and sports crossover, Laurence Fishburne, who stars as Doc Rivers in FX’s Clipped series about the Clippers amid the Donald Sterling scandal, explained to Dan Patrick that he had no idea who Doc Rivers was when he got called about the show.

As Fishburne explained, being unaware of who Rivers was before he took on the part made it easier to play the role, as he had “no preconceived notion” of who Rivers was or what he was like, allowing him to fully immerse himself in the character and simply learn something fresh for the part. He was able to get Rivers’ number through a mutual friend and invited him to a Labor Day party at his house, where he said Rivers got into a lengthy debate with a friend about Bill Russell being the greatest player of all-time, with Fishburne watched intently to get some real insight into Rivers’ mannerisms.

The casting of Clipped, particularly the players, has been the source of a lot of jokes, including from Doc’s son, Austin Rivers. Fishburne’s portrayal mostly had Austin noting his dad is in a bit better shape than he’s shown in the show, and I think many would question whether Fishburne really nailed the trademark Doc Rivers voice, even if he feels he did and it wasn’t difficult.

Despite running a blog called “Not A Blog,” George R. R. Martin is just like us: when things happen, he must post about them online.

Martin’s latest blog post congratulates playwright Eboni Booth on winning a Pulitzer Prize for her play “Primary Truth.” But it’s not just because he’s a nice guy — it’s because the two are working together on a new Game of Thrones series for HBO.

“Never having won a Pulitzer Prize myself, I am at a loss to explain why the medal shows Ben Franklin rather than Joseph Pulitzer, but Eboni has promised to fill me in after the ceremony,” he wrote. The author then revealed that the two had been working on Ten Thousand Ships, a new pilot in the GoT universe.

She’s an amazingly talented young playwright, and a joy to work with; when not writing and producing her prize-winning plays on- and off-Broadway, she has been kept busy by me and HBO, working on a new pilot for TEN THOUSAND SHIPS, a GAME OF THRONES spinoff about Nymeria and the Rhoynar. We’re all very excited about this one… though we’re still trying to figure out how we’re going to pay for ten thousand ships, three hundred dragons, and those giant turtles.

This isn’t the first attempt to bring Ten Thousand Ships to the screen. Screenwriter Brian Helgeland first penned the series back in 2017. Earlier this year, Helgeland was still hopeful. “It came out great, but I think they felt the period of my show was too far removed from the pillars of the original,” he recently told Inverse about his spinoff. “That’s why it hasn’t been picked up yet, but nothing is ever dead. My script was based on Queen Nymeria and this little blurb about her that was in a Westeros encyclopedia.”

The upcoming series does not have an expected release date, but it will probably take some time to wrangle all of those ships together… and then pay for it.

(Via Deadline)

It’s been nearly two years since House of the Dragon graced our screens but showrunner Ryan Condal and company are wasting no time tossing audiences back into the thick of what’s been billed as the bloodiest war in George R.R. Martin’s canon.

“We’re moving from one tragedy to the next,” Condal tells UPROXX of the pace of season two, hoping to set expectations early on for just how deep the show is prepared to dive into Martin’s Fire & Blood novel. If HotD’s initial outing made dramatic work of setting the board, its follow-up is primed to move its main players with dizzying speed. In the first four episodes provided to critics, armies are raised, assassinations are attempted, power transfers are made, and bodies burned. Each episode is an exercise in cause and effect, chaos, catastrophe, and consequence as Emma D’Arcy’s chosen heir hunts the crown that was promised, foiled at turns by enemies familiar and foreign as the show makes good use of its supporting cast (Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Eve Best, and Rhys Ifans are unsurprisingly brilliant but Tom Glynn-Carney, Ewan Mitchell, Phia Saban, and Harry Collett easily embrace bigger responsibilities this time around.)

In Martin’s world, dragons have always been the draw, but more and more, HotD seems to understand the real thrill of a dynastical fall happens on the ground, not in the air.

UPROXX spoke with Condal about plotting the show’s highly anticipated season two, the criticisms of season one he took to heart, and why Daemon Targaryen apologists have their work cut out for them.

One of the criticisms of season one was the lighting of specific scenes. Did you make any changes to the look of the show for season two?

The only thing I want to be too dark on the show is the mood. Yeah, we did take that to heart. Making a season of television is a collaborative effort. There are a lot of voices in that mix and there are different voices in the aesthetic mix when you’re trying to create the visual look of a show in season one. There are things that I heard from the audience and I don’t disagree with certain things. That was definitely something that was on our minds, on HBO’s minds. We went into season two making sure that the beautiful things — the costumes that we’ve made and the sets that have been built and the performances, we want to be able to see them in all the glory that they deserve to be seen in.

Were you surprised by the fan reactions to certain characters in season one?

I mean, look, Matt Smith has charisma for days, but I was just surprised at how many people out there are willing to make excuses for Daemon’s awful behavior. I think that speaks to Matt’s amazing portrayal of the character and the character that George wrote, that we adapted for TV. He’s fascinating and you just want to see what he’s going to do next. I’m ready to hear all the support for Daemon and his war crimes.

This season feels a bit like The Cold War but with dragons. How did you find balance between the action fans expect and the character-focused work that made season one so interesting?

You’re trying to move the story forward and what is the thing that moves the narrative ahead? Oftentimes in a war, it is tragedy. Medieval war moves very slow. We have these armies who are spread all over this continent who now have to raise arms, get on the march and make their way to King’s Landing in order to either challenge or defend the throne, depending on which side you’re on. Dragons of course move much faster. But as you pointed out, this is kind of a nuclear cold war where, ‘Yes, I have a dragon, but if I launch it, I know that it could result in my kingdom getting burned down. I have to be very careful about how I deploy those things.’ So you’re seeing a lot of very tense character machinations as people are stressing and straining over those council tables, trying to figure out the strategic moves that they can make to pick things off and to gather banners and strength in a way that isn’t risking the crown. They’re trying to build to a critical mass where either their power is undeniable and the other side has to surrender, or where they can just, by brute force, have enough people and dragons to either defend or take the throne.

In terms of where the season is going as a whole, are there any chapters from the book that we’re going to be spending a lot of time in?

I mean, certainly we’re following the narrative as laid out in Fire and Blood. I would say I’m very interested, very excited for the audience to see Daemon’s story in the River Lands. That story is only covered in a couple of lines in the book. So we had to create a story for him there, and I’m very proud of the one that we did. And I think it’s really compelling because it’s a great external challenge for Daemon in trying to raise the largest army of an undeclared host in the Seven Kingdoms. And the internal story that he experiences there, which I won’t talk about, is a fascinating one and really lets Matt Smith shine as an actor.

‘House Of The Dragon’ season 2 premieres Sunday, June 16 on HBO.