‘Too much policing of stories’

House of the Dragon‘s King Consort Matt Smith, has a problem with trigger warnings: “Isn’t being shocked, surprised, stirred the point?”

“It’s okay to feel uncomfortable or provoked while looking at a painting or watching a play, but I worry everything’s being dialed and dumbed down,” the actor, who plays Machiavellian schemer Daemon Targaryen in the HBO fantasy series, recently told The Times. “We’re telling audiences they’re going to be scared before they’ve watched something.”

Trigger warnings, disclaimers shown before a TV episode or film, alert viewers to the particular nature of graphic content to follow — often, violence and sexuality — but the push for trigger warnings is sometimes seen as censorious behavior.

Smith has played a great number of polarizing and even outright unlikeable characters over the years, from his fiery dragonrider to the icy Prince Philip in the first two seasons of The Crown to a chilling Charles Manson in Charlie Says and on. When asked if he’s drawn to these characters’ thorny natures, he said, “One hundred percent! That’s the f—ing point,” adding, “We should be telling morally difficult stories, nowadays in particular.”

“Too much policing of stories and being afraid to bring them out because a climate is a certain way is a shame,” Smith said. “I’m not sure I’m on board with trigger warnings.”

House of the Dragon, in particular, has been criticized repeatedly for its lack of warnings, including before a season 1 episode featuring a violent birthing scene. The show and its saucy predecessor, Game of Thrones, both have maturity ratings, however. They are rated TV-MA, meaning that they are inappropriate for children under 17.

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“I used to go to a local video shop and get Slither, Basic Instinct, Disclosure — all these erotic thrillers,” Smith said, “I was way too young to be watching them. I watched Friday the 13th when I was nine — actually, that scarred me. Absolutely ruined me.”

In the modern TV landscape, Netflix has led the way in adding trigger warnings to various series like The Politician (“those who struggle with mental health”) and Stranger Things (a gun violence-related trigger warning, following the Uvalde shooting). The streaming giant cited “a tremendous amount of discussion about our series 13 Reasons Why” for The Politician warnings, alluding to controversy stirred up by the former’s graphic treatment of suicide and self harm.

During 13 Reasons Why‘s run on Netflix, the National Association of School Psychologists released a statement warning that “exposure to another person’s suicide, or to graphic or sensationalized accounts of death, can be one of the many risk factors that youth struggling with mental health conditions cite as a reason they contemplate or attempt suicide.”

Also “culture war” debates over certain properties and depictions, Smith said, “reduce it to a place that it doesn’t need to be in.” He singles out backlash to recent castings of non-white and non-male actors as the titular Doctor on Doctor Who as particularly ludicrous. “People that attack Doctor Who blow my mind,” he said. “It’s about an alien who is cool and travels around the universe saving civilizations — what’s not to love?”

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The English actor served as the long-running British sci-fi comedy series’ Eleventh Doctor for four seasons, following David Tennant’s portrayal of the Doctor. Smith was eventually succeeded by Jodie Whittaker, the first woman Doctor, and then Ncuti Gatwa, the first Doctor of color and the show’s current star.

Representatives for Smith did not respond to Entertainment Weekly‘s request for comment.