Is This Your King?

On House of the Dragon's second season, Tom Glynn-Carney is so good at playing pathetically bad you almost forget you're supposed to hate him.

- Roxana Hadadi

TOM GLYNN-CARNEY is looking to grow his record collection. His parents gave him a record player five years ago, and there's something about vinyl-its tactile nature, its innate romanticism, how it shows its age-that appeals to the actor and musician, whose preferences tend toward the vintage. He's partial to secondhand clothes, and on this sunny late-May day in New York, his outfit is a mélange of earth tones, including a forest-green cable-knit sweater vest that shows off a left arm decorated with tattoos. Petite gold hoops glint in his ears. On our walk to Rough Trade in midtown, he excitedly tells me about the specific record he's looking for: 2008's The Seldom Seen Kid, by Elbow, a British band led by singer and songwriter Guy Garvey, whom Glynn-Carney calls "the nucleus" of his musical taste. Inside the store, we make a beeline for the used bins and can't find it; we're not lucky in the alternative-rock section, either. When an employee confirms the store doesn't have the album, Glynn-Carney is disappointed yet quick with a joke: "I'm just more saddened for the people of New York."