‘My mom says I don’t work anymore!’: Olivia Cooke has power, luck, and division in House of Dragon | Dragon House

HOuse of the Dragon is a great television series. Over two seasons, the Game of Thrones prequel has captivated viewers with its intrigue, revenge, candlelit meetings about war, and giant sheep-herding dragons. Olivia Cooke’s father, however, didn’t get the memo.

We are in London, on a blizzard afternoon, and Cooke is drinking from a bottle of neon water (“Tell me if my teeth turn purple”). His father texted him yesterday. He grabs his phone and snaps a picture of the television, the first season of House of the Dragon packed and ready to go. He said: ‘It’s raining outside, so I’m going to start watching more.'” He laughs. “I was like, well, Dad, I’ve been working for six years, I hope you like it, kissing.” What was his comment? “Yes, I like it. Very violent.” He was planning to watch another episode after picking up Cooke’s nephew from school.

Cooke may only be 32 years old, but in fairness to his father, there is still a lot of work to do. The actor grew up in Oldham. At the age of 18, he moved to Vancouver to star in a prequel, the Psycho spin-off. Bates Motel. After that, he lived in New York for a couple of busy but unhappy years, before returning to London, before the epidemic (while shooting the film Pixie in Belfast, he realized: “Oh my God, I don’t have to mess with my sense of humor anymore”). He has made films, starring in Steven Spielberg Ready Player One and Riz Ahmed inside The Sound of Steel. She was the brilliant Becky Sharp in the ITV adaptation Nonsense Fair and appeared briefly as MI5 agent Sid in the spy thriller Slow Horses. But House of the Dragon, in which he plays the scheming and sinister Alicent Hightower, has taken a major turn.

This series is based on George RR Martin’s book Fire & Blood, and although it is not easy to talk about the world of Westeros, the point is this: Alicent was the best friend of Rhaenyra Targaryen (played as a senior by Emma D’Arcy), and gave her in marriage to Rhaenyra’s father, Rhaenyra’s father, King Viseryen, to become King Viseryen. He then gave birth to most of the questionable behavior of the blond heir to the Iron Throne (the first season), went to war with Rhaenyra for the crown after the death of Viserys (the second season), and, finally, waved the white flag and made an agreement to give his son to Rhaenyra, to help Rhaenyra say that she is true.

In short, you can say that as the third season approaches, Alicent has a lot on her plate. One reviewer called her “the saddest woman in Westeros”, but Cooke isn’t sure that description fits. He said: “I don’t think he has time to think about his feelings.”

Alicent has been divisive among fans of the show, especially in the early days, when the actress disputed Rhaenyra’s claim to the throne. But Cooke has noted that recently Alicent has become an important place for queer women and non-binary people. He said: “Alicent came from patriarchal leadership. In the first season, her marriage to the king was arranged by her father, although recent news has seen “the revelation of everything she learned, and she is becoming free, in a sense.

Some viewers don’t really help. I don’t want this to sound like ‘woe is me’, because I really appreciate the work,” Cooke says, cautiously, “but I’ll praise you as you walk down the street…”

I thought it was mostly digital, but is it also in the real world? They want a picture with you, and then afterwards, they say, ‘I really hate your personality,’ or, ‘Your personality is so bad.'” What do you say to that? “I laugh and say: ‘Okay, you can take the picture,'” she quips. “I don’t know what to do, I’m just trying to do what I can.”

Cooke deleted his Instagram six months ago. In person, he is funny and friendly, and when I ask him what made him stand out, the reason is very specific. “I was upset to see 21-year-olds looking like: ‘If you follow a program, this is what you can do,’ and it’s a side-by-side picture of him at 14, going through puberty, and him now, saying: ‘Look at the transformation.’ It’s a lot. It’s very insulting, and it messes with your sense of your body and yourself. And I think that has permeated our industry as well.” It was too much for his brain to handle, so he deleted his account and never looked back.

For a short while, he was a meme himself. “Am I?” He looks like he’s scared. Not soon, don’t worry, I say, but the negroni… “Oh yes,” he replies, clearly. When Cooke and D’Arcy started promoting House of the Dragon, a video of the pair discussing their favorite drink went viral. D’Arcy said their drink of choice was the negroni sbagliato (“with prosecco in it”). “Wow, stunnin’,” Cooke replied.

“I just thought it was interesting that in our troubled economy, that after such a big career, that was something I was known for,” he says today. “But like everything, it took about 15 minutes.” Did he remove that word from his speech? “Why, sbagliato?

No, I mean “amazing”.

“Oh, maybe, at first, out of anger.” They often say that they can argue. “And I can be a little emotional when it comes to these things, but it was all good. It was really amazing.”

In terms of unexpected hits, at the end of last summer Cooke had a very interesting and exciting star. A girlwhich was another violation. In it, her character, real estate agent Cherry Laine, goes head-to-head with her girlfriend, Daniel’s mother, wealthy art dealer Laura, who she plays. Robin Wrightwho also led the series (Laura thinks Cherry is a mountaineer; Cherry thinks Laura is a snob). It was fun and confusing, but its success surprised Cooke, because there is so much TV coming out every week. I didn’t expect it to attract so much attention. But he sees why it happened. “The relationship with his mother-in-law is very strong.

Like Alicent, the audience was divided whether to support Cherry or Laura. Cooke’s mum was on Cherry’s side – “I was like, yeah, because you can’t tell the difference between me and any character I play” – although, given some of the more obvious details, her dad described it as “being a radio show”. Even considering that – spoiler alert – Laura faked her son’s death to get him away from Cherry, most people were on the mother’s side. “Mama boys,” Cooke says slyly. “Many women were on Laura’s side.”

As well as all the flamboyant melodrama, it had a point to make about snobbery and the British class system. Daniel was from a rich family, and Cherry was from a poor family. No matter how hard he tried to fit in with his world, it wasn’t good enough. “To try to get into those networks, it’s like trying to cut through branches and branches,” says Cooke, poetically. “It’s impossible to get in, and Cherry learned the hard way. But it’s the same now. It’s very difficult to walk in the high society. I mean, not that I would want to,” he laughs. “But it’s a whole culture in itself.”

Cooke has previously spoken about the difficulties of being an actor from a working-class culture, with a northern voice, and how the entertainment industry is built on the kind of networks and connections that already exist in the upper classes of society. He jokes that his mother now scoffs whenever he calls himself an employee. “They’re like, you’re not working class anymore,” he laughs. “I think my intelligence is still working. I have been very successful in my field, despite all the difficulties.”

At the age of eight, Cooke began attending the Oldham Theater Workshop, a youth theater group that also inspired Anna Friel, Suranne Jones and Joseph Gilgun. At that time, it was the end of his road. “My mom was like, ballet isn’t working, let’s throw her in there.” What went wrong with ballet? “My mother said that I answered the teacher many times.” (In casting The Girlfriend, Wright said he chose Cooke because he had “moxie”.) Had he expressed interest in acting before? “I was the eldest daughter of two, and I was a child of divorce,” she says, drily. “So there was a lot of ‘Look at me, love me’.”

He feels that there should be more education for young people, especially from the working class. “There’s a lot of talent to be found in these places, but you have to pay for it, and it can’t be more about Harrow and Eton, because you’re only going to get one side of the story, and it won’t be true.” Without groups like Oldham Theater Workshop, TV, film and theater all start to look the same. “It’s just homogenised, and it’s boring.” After a short pause, he then laughs: “They say, he gets angry.”

But it is important to discuss this issue, he continues. “I thought with a Labor government, these things would be at the forefront, but it seems they are not.” Technology costs are reduced, and it is clear what is being lost. “Even if you don’t want to be an actor, it’s important to have a place to go and express yourself, not locked in your room on your phone. You can develop the ability to communicate with people. Children today are very isolated. And with the rise of the manosphere, drugs and drama, I show boys that they can be kind and sensitive, and that it’s a beautiful and interesting stage for it to be fun and interesting.”

Cooke has to go to a meeting, a very secret one. He has three films coming up soon. There are two horrors: Visitation, where they play nuns, and Brides, which has a gothic romance. There is a film about the crime writer Patricia Highsmith – who was originally called Switzerland, although she may now have a new name – which will be directed by Anton Corbijn. He produced Cooke’s favorite film, the Joy Division biopic Control, so he was delighted to get the chance to tell him about it.

Meanwhile, House of the Dragon is set to end with its fourth and final season. As ever, in Westeros, it is impossible to say who will make it out alive. He said: “In this book I survived to the end of the story, which means that Alicent may have had a chance. “Very good behavior, I don’t get the chop.” Her father, then, has a lot to do.

Season 3 of House of the Dragon will premiere on HBO Max, Sky Atlantic & Now on 22 June.