In
House of the Dragon, the
Game of Thrones prequel, the crowning of King Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney) has led to civil war in the Medieval fantasy world of Westeros, and several dragons left without masters. In Episode 2.7 (2024), a group of Dragonseeds is ordered to try to claim them.
Sorry, after researching two fan wiki and wikipedia, I'm still not sure who dragonseeds are, and why they have to be the ones to tame the dragons.Silver Denys (Robert Rhodes) volunteers to go first, but as he reaches out to touch Vermithor the Bronze Fury, it breathes fire and incinerates him, along with most of the other dragonseeds. Finally a blacksmith named Hugh managed to trick the dragon into obedience.
Silver Denys was on screen for only about a minute, and had no lines, but he became the subject of extensive fan debate. Was he brave or foolhardy? Some fans also criticized his appearance: the stage makeup was amateurish, not realistic, grotesque, an obvious symbol of his incestuous parentage, and so on. Others stepped up to "defend" him: it's his real appearance, he's "deformed."
Robert called them out: "Call it a scar or a difference. The word deformed isn't very pleasant and insinuates I am half formed/incorrectly formed. I'm not incorrect, just a bit different."
For a long time, Robert responded to the stares with anger, but now, if he's not tired from telling the story 1,000 times a day, he'll say "Is there anything you want to ask about?"
The story: he was born with a congenital melanocytic nevis -- a birthmark that covered half his face. Doctors worried that it would become cancerous, so he spent his childhood in and out of hospitals, undergoing tissue expansions and skin grafts. He had his last surgery at age 17.
When he was in high school, Robert realized that he was gay, and worried that he'd be doubly stigmatized when he tried to make connections. Would he ever be able to find a partner? Was he going to live as an perpetual outsider among his own people?
Then he auditioned for Hairspray -- and won the part of Link Larkin, the hunky heartthrob (played by Zac Efron in 2007 and Garrett Clayton in 2016). That's when he decided to become an actor, to have people look at him for his hotness and acting talent, not for his scar.
After high school Robert attended the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in South London, where he received a B.A. in Performance in 2018. He started filling up a resume with acting roles:
Commercials for Enterprise and Kandar
The lead in the music videos Heroist (left) and God for a Day
Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Bill Sykes in The Invitation
It was a little harder to break into on-screen acting. Robert is an ambassador for Changing Faces UK, which combats the stigma around people with visible difference. Especially in mass media, where they are portrayed as "shy, broken, desperate" outcasts, or more commonly as villains:
Kylo Ren in the Star Wars universe
Tony Montana in Scarface
Scar in The Lion King
The Joker.
So he tries to find roles where his visual difference is irrelevant to the character.
His first professional acting role was in a tv adaption of the Agatha Christie novel
Why Didn't They Ask Evans? (2022). Will Poulter plays as a golfer who stumbles upon a dying man. His last words are "Why didn't they ask Evans?" I don't know what Robert's character does.
Next he played an orderly in three episodes of
Masters of the Air (2024), which I thought was a steampunk series with dirigibles flying over London. It actually stars Austin Butler, Callum Turner, and Anthony Boyle (left) as bomber pilots during World War II.
More after the break
