Olivia Cooke said she once slapped her House of the Dragon co-star so hard it made him cry, calling the moment jarring even though it achieved the reaction the production wanted.
Cooke, who plays Alicent Hightower in the Game of Thrones prequel, described the incident while promoting her new six-part series The Girlfriend. She told The i Paper that Tom Glynn-Carney, who plays King Aegon Targaryen, encouraged her to "slap him for real," and that they consulted the stunt coordinator and received permission to go ahead. "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.
Cooke added that intense physical moments and stunt work have long affected her emotionally. "It was hideous," she told The i Paper, and said she often feels sick and wants to cry after doing similar scenes. She also recounted the long audition process for House of the Dragon and the mixed emotions when she learned she had won the role of Alicent. Appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Cooke said she auditioned for months and that when she finally got the call in 2020 she felt "immediate dread" because of the scale of the job.
The Girlfriend, which debuts on Prime Video on Wednesday, required Cooke to perform several sex scenes with her on-screen boyfriend, played by Laurie Davidson. She said she and Davidson worked with intimacy coordinators on set. To break the ice before shooting, Cooke said, the two sang Celine Dion's "All Coming Back to Me Now" together; she told Fallon that Davidson, who starred in the stage production of Cats, harmonized even though he did not know the song.
Cooke praised the role played by intimacy coordinators in modern productions, saying it is "amazing" that such positions now exist. She noted that before their widespread use actors had to "fudge their way through those scenes," and said the presence of coordinators is particularly important for young performers who may lack the vocabulary to express discomfort. "For women, who’ll often get labelled ‘difficult’ or ‘a b**ch’ for speaking up," she said, the coordinators provide a clearer framework for consent and boundaries.
Robin Wright stars in The Girlfriend as the mother of Davidson’s character and directed episodes of the series. Cooke said Wright "just loves it" and described the director's work on set, observing that Wright would move quickly between acting and directing duties and preferred being behind the camera. Cooke remarked that for Wright's generation, directing was a less accessible career path, adding that moving behind the camera has been a way for actresses of that era to expand their careers.
Cooke is currently working on season three of House of the Dragon. In interviews around The Girlfriend’s release she has balanced promoting the new series with discussing the responsibilities that come with large-scale productions, including stunt safety, the use of intimacy coordinators and the emotional impact of intense scenes. The Girlfriend, based on the Michelle Frances novel, will be available to stream starting September 10.