‘House of the Dragon’ Producer on Epic Battles and a ‘Breaking Bad’ Idea 5

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more impressive TV resumé than Melissa Bernstein’s since 2008.

The four-time Emmy-winning producer was right by Vince Gilligan’s side when he got Breaking Bad’s pilot off the ground in 2007 and together with Mark Johnson and Gran Via Productions she helped turn the idiosyncratic crime drama about a high school chemistry teacher-turned-meth kingpin into its own empire. Immediately following the staggering success of the Bryan Cranston-led Breaking Bad, Gilligan, Bernstein, Peter Gould and the rest of Gilligan’s brain trust spun the series off into the Bob Odenkirk vehicle Better Call Saul, which is now considered to be one of the most acclaimed prequels in any medium. Then came 2019’s well-received sequel movie El Camino, chronicling Jesse Pinkman’s (Aaron Paul) quest for freedom. 

Throughout that period of time, Bernstein also helped shepherd other critical darlings including Rectify, Halt and Catch Fire and In Treatment season four. The latter marks a significant turn of events, as the producer, toward the end of Saul, left Johnson’s Gran Via to sign a production deal with HBO. (Johnson discovered Gilligan during a screenwriting contest at 1988’s Virginia Film Festival.)

“I decided to go out on my own because I realized that I had a very strong point of view about what projects I wanted to take on, and I honestly didn’t want to limit Mark on what he was doing,” Bernstein tells The Hollywood Reporter.

Bernstein’s HBO deal also meant that she wouldn’t be joining Gilligan on his upcoming, and still-untitled, Apple TV+ show starring Saul’s Rhea Seehorn. Instead, Bernstein journeyed to Westeros — joining the Game of Thrones spinoff, House of the Dragon, which, like Saul, is also one of the more highly regarded prequels. It may be a high-flying fantasy show with dragon escapades, but Bernstein, while working with showrunner Ryan Condal, often referenced the ethos that she subscribed to during her tenure with Gilligan. 

“Whether there’s dragons or whether you’re in high medieval times, it’s still about human nature,” Bernstein says. “My focus was to make sure that the scenes, arcs and storylines rang true in terms of who we are as people and our experience on this planet. That’s really, for me, what makes a story work.”

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Bernstein talks HOtD heading into the season two finale and also addresses a potential return to the Breaking Bad universe.

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Well, you left the nest, so to speak. You’d been with Mark Johnson and Gran Via for a very long time, and you’d also worked with Vince Gilligan since 2006 or 2007. But then you branched out after Saul’s series finale in 2022. What made this the right time to go out on your own? 

I actually left Mark and Gran Via before Saul was over. Time has this way of morphing, and I can’t even remember exactly when it was, but it happened before the show ended. Mark and I had worked together for more than a decade, and I adore him and respect him. We still talk all the time and still aspire to work together again. But I decided to go out on my own because I realized that I had a very strong point of view about what projects I wanted to take on, and I honestly didn’t want to limit Mark on what he was doing. He was so respectful of me that I think he would’ve let me [choose], but Gran Via was his company and I felt like he should be able to make the decisions about what projects he wanted to take on. And I am so not in the volume business. For me, it’s all about stories resonating, and I just wanted to be able to make those choices about what stories and what storytellers to work with.

There must’ve been a point where you had to break the news to Vince that you weren’t joining his latest endeavor on Apple TV+. Was that a pretty emotional day since he was a big part of your life for nearly two decades?

Yes, absolutely. Anything Vince is a part of is going to be special and totally singular. So it’s hard because I adore him personally and as a mentor, and because I also know that he’s going to make something extraordinary. So not being a part of it, just from a selfish standpoint, is hard. But it wasn’t that I didn’t want to step onto his new show. I had a preexisting deal with HBO and I wanted to honor that deal. Vince is making his show with Apple, so the decision came down to me needing to and wanting to honor my commitment to HBO. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to work with Vince; I will always want to work with him, but it didn’t make it any less difficult. So it’s my hope that I will continue to have the opportunity to collaborate in some way with Vince and the entire team. The producers, the cast and crew on that show are all very dear to my heart.

I’d heard stories for years of how the Game of Thrones people loved Breaking Bad. They even hired Breaking Bad’s Michelle MacLaren and Michael Slovis to direct. And, in 2015, when Peter Dinklage upset Jonathan Banks for the Emmy following Saul season one, he made a point to namecheck Jonathan since it was widely believed to be his year. Did you also sense that mutual admiration between the shows in the 2010s? 

It was impossible not to respect what David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] were doing on Game of Thrones and HBO in general. It was such a spectacular show, and there was nothing like it. It was very different from what we were doing on Breaking Bad, but it was really special and unique and so compelling. My jaw would drop watching that show, and it was such a smart thing to get Michelle and Michael on board. It’s wonderful when artists like them get to cross pollinate between such different universes. 

I just remember hearing stories of Game of Thrones actors watching Breaking Bad during their downtime and whatnot.

How much more different can you get than a story of a science teacher turned meth-dealing drug lord? 

That’s probably why they liked it. It was the polar opposite of what they were making at the time.

Exactly!

Miguel Sapochnik was the outgoing EP on Dragon, as well as in-house director and co-showrunner. Were you basically brought in to help fill his shoes as a producer?

No, I think Miguel and I have very different shoes, and I don’t think I was meant as a swap-in for him. I’m also not directing on the show. 

You should be, based on your Saul episodes.

(Laughs) You’re so kind. But he has so many talents, and I don’t think that was my role. When Ryan Condal became the singular showrunner, I was there to support him and the team. I’m not a fantasy master. I don’t have the expertise or the encyclopedic knowledge of George R.R. Martin’s incredible world that Ryan has, but I have a background in good television and strong narrative storytelling. So I was there to be a part of that aspect of the show and really focus on story and storytelling, while also making sure that we’re delivering on the beautiful scripts that were written.

What was your first order of business on Dragon? How did you get your feet wet? 

It really started with reading scripts. I started in November [2022] before we started shooting [in the spring of 2023], and they had all their scripts written. It was a really incredible operation in that sense. That was not really how we were able to work in Vince’s world, and it was amazing to come on board and be able to see the vision for the season all at once. So I stepped into it from a story standpoint of, “What are the story arcs for these characters this season? What are their journeys to get there?”

Co-executive producer Trina E. Siopy made the transatlantic voyage from Saul with you. Was it quite important to have a familiar and trusted right hand during such a big professional leap?

Absolutely. It was daunting to come into a show, world and franchise that I wasn’t a part of. I didn’t know what the Game of Thrones systems were going to be, and to have somebody who approached storytelling and production and showmaking from the same school that I came up on was really important to me. House of the Dragon has two teams shooting at all times, and we had five directors shooting these eight episodes, so it’s impossible to be everywhere at once. I used to feel that way when we just had one team shooting. But when you double that up, I just felt so much better knowing that I had a partner. We could divide and conquer, and make sure we really had a handle on what was going on in every corner of the realm. 

You’d worked with VFX before: Lalo’s German vacation, Chuck’s fire, the glass partition in the HHM mailroom, which, at one point, was Saul’s most expensive VFX shot …

(Laughs) Yeah.

But that was nothing on the level of dragon-on-dragon warfare. Did it take a minute to get acclimated to that kind of workflow?

It absolutely did. I had come up doing sequence by sequence pieces that you knew would be coming months and months in advance, but it would be a one-off, discreet project. Whereas on this show, it’s ongoing from the very beginning because the visual effects team can’t waste any time. They have to stay ahead of everything in terms of creating the dragon-riding and new dragons and also the world building. It’s every day and every week. So, just getting a hand on how you stay in the flow of that was a real education and such a thrill to be a part of, but it was a totally new operation for me. 

The midseason battle at Rook’s Rest, what was your involvement in the lead-up to that? How did you help pave the way for such a massive effort?

Well, I don’t know if I’m paving any ways, but that was largely about the incredible director, Alan Taylor, who really knows the Game of Thrones world and understands massive battles like that. Ryan also wrote that episode, and he is so enthusiastic about those kinds of sequences. So it was making sure that those two got time together with the visual effects team, the stunts team and the special effects team to really plan out what the vision was and how to elevate what was on the page. 

Alan did a lot of work with Jane [Wu], his storyboard artist, and they tried to figure out how to make the battle in the sky as unique as possible. And then it was how to keep the ground action moving forward and feeling like these two battles were interacting at the same time. So it was such an incredible collaborative effort from everybody in production. Every member of the team participates in such a fundamental way to bring something like that to fruition. So my job is just to make sure that people are communicating about their needs, their vision, their concerns and where they think things can go off track. And then it was making sure to mitigate against those risks and just provide the team every opportunity to succeed and exceed expectations. 

Dragon taught you some things, but you certainly brought your own wisdom from Bad, Saul and many others. You previously told me that it was mainly about checking in with your characters’ headspaces and making sure that there’s real human behavior on display, even with the background artists. Is there a specific case where you found yourself quoting your Albuquerque days? 

It is largely what you said. It was less, “Oh, we did this specific gag [on Breaking Bad],” or, “this is how we approached this particular kind of sequence.” It was more of those philosophical fundamentals about how real people behave: “If you were in this situation, what would you do?” So it was just really making sure that the objectives are grounded in real human emotions and human inclinations. Whether there’s dragons or whether you’re in high medieval times, it’s still about human nature. So my focus was just to make sure that the scenes, arcs and storylines rang true in terms of who we are as people, our humanity and our experience on this planet. That’s really, for me, what makes a story work. So that’s definitely what I would come back to with Ryan Condal, Sarah Hess and their team.

The marketing for Dragon has summed the show up in the simple terms of Team Black versus Team Green. Internally, do most people lean toward Black, or do some pretty staunch defenders of Green actually exist?

Well, in season two, you get to know this younger generation better, and so I think that actually does help the audience invest more in either side. For example, as you get to know Tom Glynn-Carney’s King Aegon II, you begin to understand his character and feel his vulnerability and his desire to do well, but you also see the shortcomings of his upbringing. So I think you start to feel that it’s not as simple as Emma D’Arcy’s Rhaenyra having to be the one that wins. You start to get a handle on this family, and it starts to feel like this Shakespearean family drama. You really understand where they’re all coming from in these beautifully written and rendered scenes, and that just makes it more difficult to say it’s one team or the other. When you understand where everybody is coming from in a way, that makes it far more complicated and far more interesting.

Saul fans will never forget the time that you, as director, blew up a Los Pollos Hermanos location. 

(Laughs) Me neither! 

It seems like that sensibility would fit Dragon well. Would you ever want to take a crack at directing an episode someday? 

I would never rule anything like that out. It’s thrilling to be able to consider such a thing, but this season, I watched and learned what it’s like to direct on such a massive scale and on such a visual effects-driven show. I was a student of the world and franchise, and when I started, I was like, “I could never direct this. There’s too much math involved.” But then, as you get more comfortable with all the processes and with all the incredible talents that are heading up every department, you realize what good hands you would be in as a director. All of these department heads know their crafts and have the highest standards, so you realize that this collaborative art form is what makes it all possible. So, who knows? I will direct again, for sure, but I would never presume that it would be on this show. I would still like to keep that opportunity open, though.

In Breaking Bad’s “Salud,” Jesse Pinkman auditioned for the cartel in Mexico, and he was being recorded the entire time he cooked meth. Well, that tape is still out there somewhere, meaning Heisenberg’s formula is still up for grabs. What if someone were to find that tape? 

Ooh, I’m intrigued. This is an interesting trail to follow.

There’s a movie coming out in September called Speak No Evil, and it caused quite a stir among Halt and Catch Fire fans because Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy play a married couple in this vacation thriller. As someone who helped cast them as friends and colleagues on Halt, does this rattle you at all? 

I loved it! I watched the trailer and I was so excited to see those two working together again. Both Scoot and Mackenzie are such incredibly talented actors, and I would love to see any mashup of that cast working together. They’re wonderful human beings, and they really are just exceptional artists who make the most extraordinary choices. So, to see them getting to work opposite one another is an absolute thrill, and I can’t wait to see that movie.

I wonder if they sat their Halt co-stars Lee Pace and Kerry Bishé down and broke the news gently.

(Laughs) Well, they’re the next pair. We’ve got to see those two in a movie.

Yes, an eye for an eye. Well, Melissa Bernstein, congrats on a successful trip to Westeros.

Thank you for your kind words and for this thought about Jesse’s formula [being on tape].

It’s still out there! You’re all doing other stuff right now, but at some point, everyone has to return to the Gilliverse or Heisenverse, if you prefer.

Yeah, absolutely. The pull is too strong.

When you build the perfect shared universe, you just can’t leave it untouched for too long.

I assure you, I will not.

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House of the Dragon’s season two finale airs next week on HBO.