This article contains spoilers for House of the Dragon season 3 episode 1.Midway through the House of the Dragon season 3 premiere, Rhaenyra, Alicent, and the Dance of their Dragons all take a back seat for a bucolic moment of peace in the Riverlands where freshly-minted dragonriders Addam of Hull (Clinton Liberty), Hugh the Hammer (Kieran Bew), and Ulf (Tom Bennett) are gathered to keep a watchful eye out for Prince Aemond and his dragon Vhagar.The trio is clearly bored with the assignment as, unbeknownst to them, Aemond currently has better things to do than aimlessly fly around Westeros now that he sits the Iron Throne in his missing brother’s stead. So Ulf, the most talkative among them, does what he does best and begins to speak. Without so much as a “hey, I’m about to reveal some real shit here” warning, Ulf proceeds with the details of his devastating backstory. cnx.cmd.push(function() {cnx({playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530",}).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796");});“Never knew my mother. Same as most of the gutter rats. Was kicked about more than a mongrel dog. Wished for death more days than I wished to live. There was this priest from Essos – fancied me, paid me coin to do things. He said I had king’s blood. That I was born for a purpose. I liked that story. So I owned it. Ulf the dragonseed. That red cunt was right!”With one relatively brief monologue, delivered superbly from Tom Bennett, Ulf suddenly becomes one of the more compelling characters on House of the Dragon and a much more layered version than the one presented in George R.R. Martin’s source material Fire & Blood. As has been well-established, Martin’s book is presented as a historical tome written by “modern day” Westerosi maesters and therefore offers little about the true motivations of the major players of the era, let alone the B-teamers like Ulf and company. Not only does this tragic account of Ulf’s upbringing help explain some of his cynical mindset and self-destructive behaviors, it also ties him in more closely to the Game of Thrones canon. The priest he mentions is undoubtedly a red priest of R’hllor a.k.a. the sect of crimson sorcerers that Melisandre of Asshai belongs to. In hindsight, Ulf’s backstory feels so integral to his character that it would seem impossible to portray the boorish dragonseed without having access to it. Thankfully, Bennett had all the access he needed. That’s because, before shooting his first scene on House of the Dragon‘s “Cock Inn” tavern set back in season 2, Bennett was approached by series showrunner Ryan Condal with a revealing document. “Ryan took a sheet out of his folder and gave it to me,” Bennett tells Den of Geek and other outlets during a press roundtable. “He said ‘I’ve already written this, but I think it might be useful to you now. It’s kind of a monologue of yours.’ I read it and was like that’s so generous, because this really does inform everything. Like this here is your origin story. Now I can hang everything else off that.”Bennett’s early knowledge of Ulf’s childhood imbues the moment with a gravitas that his scene partners were happy to play off of. “It was useful for me as well because within that scene he’s revealing so much and being so honest, and then he asks Hugh about himself and Hugh chooses not to tell him anything,” Bew says.“I was in awe of Tom as he just disappeared as Ulf in the scene, and it’s a particular way I’ve never seen Ulf before,” Liberty adds. “I started to see the humanity in him and kind of understand his perspective and why he is the way he is. And then a couple of takes later I had to obviously be professional and be Addam within the scene. But honestly, it caught me off guard how good he was. genuinely.”It’s amazing the things you find out about your friends when waiting for a massive she-dragon that never comes. New episodes of House of the Dragon season 3 premiere Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max, culminating with the finale on August 9.The post House of the Dragon: Tom Bennett on the Ulf Moment That Explained Everything appeared first on Den of Geek.