Fabien Frankel spent seven months preparing for his first sex scene in House of the Dragon

Fabien Frankel has admitted that he spent seven months preparing for his first sex scene in House of the Dragon.

The actor, 28, from London, plays Ser Criston Cole, who is a Knight of the Kingsguard, in the Game of Thrones prequel.

The fantasy franchise is infamous for their numerous sex scenes, however each actor dedicates time to make those scenes impactful for fans.

Fabien’s character had to do a sex scene with Milly Alcock’s character Rhaenyra Targaryen in episode four of House of the Dragon.

The Kingsguard is not allowed to own land or have sex, so Rhaenyra coerces Criston into her bedroom before kissing him against his will.

However, once his white cloak is removed, he willingly goes to bed with the Princess.

Fabien told Entertainment Weekly that he wanted to make it obvious to viewers that it was a struggle because of his vows to protect her.

He said: "It was about the struggle in every way: the struggle to get the armour off, the struggle of him to betray his vows... That’s how I wanted to pitch it.”

The actor added that he wanted to show the struggle of getting his armour off in the scene to “make it feel real”.

“There’s no way Rhaneyra and Cole are gonna take that armour off in 10 seconds. So I was like, ‘Well, you have to have that in.

"These are all the things I really cared about, ‘cause they take away this sort of, to my mind, archaic sexual sex scenes that have existed for so long in television and film, and make it feel real,” Fabien said.

Fabien believes that everything came together due to the great communication between himself, co-star Milly, the episode director Clare Kilner and the intimacy coordinator.

He is not the first person to praise the show’s intimacy coordinators, as Emily Carey, who plays Alicent Hightower, also recently opened up about sex scenes in the HBO fantasy series.

Emily told the Newsweek that despite previously being scared of her sex scene with Paddy Considine’s character Viserys Targaryen, it was a “lot easier” than she thought, thanks to the intimacy coordinator.

“Having that outlet of the intimacy coordinator, to be able to talk everything through and not be shunned, or not feel awkward … Yeah, it was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be,” Emily said.