Home
While I watched all Game of Thrones seasons, HBO's prequel House of the Dragon hasn't piqued my interest yet. It doesn't mean that I'm oblivious about the show. I know, for example, who Daemon Targaryen is.
Yeah, the guy who Manchester City players think has a resemblance with Erling Haaland.
View this post on Instagram
Daemon Targaryen's role is played by talented actor Matt Smith, who has been in Doctor Who and The Crown in the past.
What I didn't know about Smith, though, was the fact that he could have been a soccer player, but a chronic disease crashed his dream.
House of the Dragon star Matt Smith played for Leicester City
Smith was a promising soccer player in Leicester City's youth system. He was even captain in the Foxes academies, but at 16, a medical condition called spondylosis – a degeneration in the spine through wear and tear over age – cut his career short.
"It was a tough time because I just felt unfulfilled, to be honest," he said on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. "I felt like I was so certain that that is what I was going to do. It was very difficult for me to tell people that I had been released because the vain part of me was like, I am that and I am the footballer, you know, and at school, I was the footballer and suddenly I wasn't that."
But amidst the emotional pain of trying to assume the life that could have been, a drama teacher stepped up and convinced him to give acting a chance.
And, well, things have turned more than OK for Smith, right?
