“Now That I’ve Achieved A Role In House Of The Dragon, Everything Else Will Be The Cherry On Top”: Clinton Liberty On Being At The Heart Of His Favourite Show

The Irish actor is plausibly the world’s first Paul Mescal fanboy. He competed for Ireland as a dancer but almost pursued fashion as a career rather than acting. His breakout role on House of the Dragon, he says, came through manifestation. His talent says otherwise. 

When Clinton Liberty isn’t filming for a gargantuan TV franchise, he favours a life without frills. “I do the same thing every day,” he explains. “I wake up, go to the gym, read, pray, say my affirmation, and if I’m really crazy, I go to the cinema or hang out with my mum.” He needs the monotony, he tells Man About Town, to offset the whirlwind that is his professional life, centred in recent years around his recurring role in HBO’s House of the Dragon. 

Ironically, Liberty says his dizzying rise as part of the high-fantasy colossus is a product of the affirmation component of those aforementioned routine daily rituals. Before securing the role, one of the dreams he sought to speak into existence was to bag a part in an HBO production. “I was watching Season 1 of House of the Dragon praying that I could have an opportunity to be a part of anything like that.” However, there was one role in the Game of Thrones prequel, he says, that was in his sights in particular: Velaryon shipwright-turned-dragon-rider Addam of Hull. He had previously read the literary source material, Fire & Blood, so knew Addam would figure in the TV adaptation’s later chapters. 

It’s just gone 9 am on a Tuesday in early June when I meet the 28-year-old over Zoom. He joins from Dublin, in the midst of a dense week of filming, a wide smile punctuating his chat nonetheless, as well as an overall vitality enviable for such an hour. It’s unsurprising, however. These days, he is living his dream. By December 2023, it was confirmed that perhaps the manifestations worked, and he would be joining the cast of House of the Dragon for Season 2 in the very role he desired. He would meet audiences on screen six months later, and Season 3, in which he enjoys an expanded presence, is premiering in the weeks after we speak. 

However, without discrediting the purported power of self-actualisation, it would be a disservice to chalk the 28-year-old’s swift career success to manifestation alone. His education at Trinity College Dublin’s Lir Academy of Dramatic Art primed him for when the opportunity to play Addam came his way. BAFTA-winning Irish acting export Andrew Scott directed Liberty to the institution, regarded as one of the most prestigious training grounds in the country. Liberty met the actor – who he’d recently watched as a villain in the 24th James Bond instalment Spectre – on the set of Handsome Devil, a 2016 coming-of-age drama in which a 17-year-old Liberty was cast as a dancing antagonist in a fictional talent show.

The gig brought Liberty to Dublin for the first time, 50 miles from his home in Laytown, County Meath: “A very beautiful, small, community-oriented village with small-village-type people, right near the beach.” He grew up there alongside his three older siblings, moving from his birthplace of Nigeria at the age of six, and despite Laytown's modest population, enjoyed no scarcity of performance opportunities. In secondary school he played Tyrone in Fame, “an amalgamation of all of my loves” – Liberty was part of local dance club Fit Kids/Fit Teens throughout his childhood, later competing as a dancer at an international level by 14, before signing with a local dance agency. Fame was followed by a“turning point” lead turn as Ren in Footloose, a centrepiece feature of his fourth year: an optional transitional stage in the Irish school system between the junior and senior programmes of exam-based study. “My principal and some teachers didn’t want me to skip [the year],” he explains, “because they wanted me to take part in Footloose.” 

Attitudes at home were similarly in favour of venturing down creative avenues. “You usually hear stories, at least I have, of actors who, when they were younger, their family or friends discouraged them, for the dream being unrealistic. [Acting is] a very precarious industry to be in. But I can’t say I ever had that.” Liberty’s mum designed clothes. His sister would later study a PhD in fashion. “I was my mum’s test model and my sister’s test model,” he laughs, “they would use me as a mannequin.” Liberty considered – and still does – following their path himself. “I was definitely going to do something in fashion and acting; however, it came to a point where I knew that to succeed in one, I had to really focus on one, and that started off with acting.” 

His encounter with Scott parlayed the creative nurturing he received in his school days into a concrete game plan for making performance his job. That day on set, “I realised that people could actually have a viable career [in acting]. I didn’t fully understand this before. If it wasn’t for [Andrew’s] advice and him giving me the time of day, I wouldn’t have auditioned for drama school or gotten in, and I wouldn’t have had the career I have so far.” 

Clinton wears jacket & trousers FERRAGAMO (left), blazer BURBERRY (centre), blazer & trousers DOLCE & GABBANA; shirt DENZIL PATRICK (right)

Liberty’s first job following his graduation was in behemoth Sally Rooney TV adaptation Normal People. Released in the middle of the first round of COVID-induced national lockdowns, the drama was enshrined in history for turning Paul Mescal into one of his generation’s defining leading men. Liberty appeared in several episodes as Kiernan, one of Mescal’s character Connell’s school friends. “That [job] was an invaluable experience for me. I learned set etiquette, how to be professional, to behave on set.” Mescal served as an example, too, with a couple of years of career experience on Liberty, having also graduated from The Lir Academy two years ahead of him. “I noticed how [Paul] would treat people – he was so accommodating. At the end of the day, he would pack up his clothes, hang them up himself and bring them out to the costume department. He wouldn’t wait for them to come and collect them. I noticed that all the brilliant actors would do that. It’s something small which makes the crew’s job much easier.” 

Liberty’s days filming Normal People weren’t the first time he looked to Mescal as a role model, however. “Paul was my favourite actor in drama school,” he says. As such, the overnight frenzy Mescal attracted following Normal People’s release came as no surprise to Liberty. During drama school, “People would ask me, ‘Who’s your favourite actor in general?’ And I’d always say, ‘Paul Mescal.’” During Liberty’s first year, he watched Mescal in the third-year show, Jez Butterworth black comedy Mojo. “As a first-year student, I was only allowed to see the third-year show once, but I found a way to see it at least three times,” Liberty smiles. “I thought it was brilliant. It was the kind of acting I wanted to do. I’m a fanboy.” 

Mescal would become the first person Liberty knew to be propelled into the spotlight with such rapidity. “I remember thinking, ‘I hope he’s okay,’ because I wondered how one human being could handle this much attention.” Liberty’s own first taste of visibility came following a turn as Detective Linus Dunne in 2022’s Holding, Kathy Burke’s interpretation of Graham Norton’s murder-mystery novel of the same name. The appearance in the ITV/Virgin Media drama was a seismic event in Laytown. “Everyone and their mother was like, ‘Oh, I saw you on TV.’ I could really feel that support.” It prepared him, to an extent, for the personal profile hike that comes with House of the Dragon. “[House of the Dragon] was massive.” Fan encounters became more regular. “That wasn’t even just in Laytown, it was in Dublin.” He left Ireland temporarily to escape the intensity – “I’ve walked through Temple Bar my whole life and never once been recognised, and then all of a sudden people wanted to stop and take pictures. It took a while for me to shift my mind into, ‘You’re not normal, Clinton, you’re Clinton [in] the biggest show in the world.’” 

The embrace of Ireland’s booming creative community followed, not least with a nomination at the 2025 Irish Film and Television Awards, and recognition from those, like Scott, whom Liberty has long admired. “I remember seeing [Andrew at the IFTAs], and I went over to him, and it was such a full circle moment. I hugged him, thanked him, and he said,‘Clinton, you’re doing so well from that day on set,’ and he congratulated me. He’s just the loveliest man.’ I felt part of Ireland’s artistic culture. That’s something I’m so proud of because the country has given everything to me, and representing Ireland in a positive way is a dream come true.” 

Clinton wears jacket FERRAGAMO (left), blazer BURBERRY (centre), suit BURBERRY (right)

Liberty’s time on House of the Dragon’s set has also been replete with warm and wise words from industry seniors and stalwarts. He notes, among others, the welcomes of Steve Toussaint (Line of Duty, Small Axe) and Matt Smith (The Crown, Doctor Who) when he first arrived in Season 2. “They had already set the standard, and I felt almost like the new kid on the block trying to earn my way into the family. I remember asking Olivia Cooke questions about publicists; I kind of did the rounds with everyone.” Returning for Season 3, “I felt very grounded. I felt like I was part of the family. There was a stillness.” 

His character Addam has experienced his own evolution too between the show’s outings. “He’s a lot bolder this season,” Liberty reflects. “Last season he wanted to prove a point and was a very respectful young man, but this season, he’s inside the internal politics of war. He sees just how dark people can be and how ugly war can make people.” Thankfully, as a preexisting diehard fan of Westeros, Liberty can still watch the depravity and disaster unfold with anticipation from home as the show airs. In part, thanks to the protracted shooting schedule. He spent over a year filming Season 3. “There are some scenes that I don’t even remember. And I kind of dissociate myself, because Addam looks so different to me, and it's a different world.” 

Liberty compares filming House of the Dragon to making an eight- or nine-hour “grand-scale Hollywood film.” Securing the part on a show he loves so much has been, he says, tantamount to all of his career dreams coming true at once. “Now that I’ve achieved it, I feel like everything else will be the cherry on top.” However, I’m curious, as we part, on where the outer limits of his dreams, looking beyond this defining early career glory, might lie. Would the prospect of filming Hollywood films, for instance, persuade him to up sticks from The Emerald Isle? “Absolutely,” he replies without pause. “I was just talking to my agent, because I want to have access everywhere. House of the Dragon is on a global scale now, and it’s opened me up to a global market. If I have to go to LA and live there, I’ll be there. I want to be wherever I’m needed.” 

The House of the Dragon Season 3 finale releases 9th August (US) and 10th August (UK) on HBO Max.