Olivia Cooke said she once slapped a House of the Dragon co‑star so hard it made him cry, an incident the actor described as upsetting even though it was staged for the camera.
Cooke, 31, who plays Alicent Hightower in the Game of Thrones prequel, recounted the episode while promoting her new Prime Video limited series The Girlfriend. The co‑star she slapped was Tom Glynn‑Carney, 30, who portrays King Aegon Targaryen on the show. The two cleared the move with a stunt coordinator and agreed to go "for real," she told The i Paper, but the intensity of the contact produced the emotional reaction the scene required and left Cooke remorseful. "I walloped him! I don’t know my own strength! It was a slap that resonated across the land! It made him cry! I mean, that was the reaction that he’d wanted for the cameras. But I felt awful," she said. "It was hideous."
Cooke has spoken candidly about the physical and emotional demands of performing intense scenes. She told The i Paper she generally feels sick after stunt work and said she has "always felt sick and wanted to cry after doing any stunt work like that." She discussed the incident and other aspects of her career during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where she described the moment she learned she had won the role of Alicent after months of auditioning. "My phone was plugged in by the wall, so I just ended up, like crouching in the corner of my apartment...as all my agents were on the phone, being like, 'Your life's about to change, baby!'" she recalled. The news brought relief but also immediate anxiety: "I just felt immediate dread...Because then you have to do it, don't you? It felt like a gargantuan job."
While promoting The Girlfriend, Cooke described preparing for multiple sex scenes with co‑star Laurie Davidson, 33, and said the two used karaoke to break the ice, performing Celine Dion's "All Coming Back to Me Now" together while sustaining eye contact. She credited intimacy coordinators with helping navigate those scenes and underscored how their presence protects performers, especially younger actors who may lack the vocabulary to set boundaries. "It’s amazing to me that people had to just fudge their way through those scenes before those people existed," she told The i Paper. She added that women who speak up about discomfort have historically been labeled "difficult" or worse, a dynamic intimacy coordinators now help to address.
Robin Wright, who stars in The Girlfriend as the mother of Davidson's character and also directed several episodes, was singled out by Cooke for her dedication behind and in front of the camera. "Her job was so hard," Cooke said. "She just loves it. It’s her calling." Cooke noted that for many actresses of Wright's generation, moving from acting to directing was uncommon and that Wright's behind‑the‑camera work represents a broader shift in the industry.
The Girlfriend, a six‑episode drama based on Michelle Frances's novel of the same name, debuted on Prime Video on Wednesday, Sept. 10. Cooke is also working on the third season of House of the Dragon, which continues to develop the political and familial conflicts that frame her character's storyline.
Cooke's remarks reflect ongoing conversations within film and television about on‑set safety, the use of stunt coordination, and the formalization of intimacy coordination practices. She framed the slap incident as an example of how a performance choice intended to achieve authenticity can have real emotional consequences for performers, and she emphasized the importance of safeguards and clear communication when staging physically and emotionally charged scenes.