There has been debate in recent years on intimacy coordinators on set, with some actors even saying they think they're not needed. Talking to The I Paper about her Amazon Prime Video series The Girlfriend, Olivia Cooke, who also plays Alicent Hightower in House of the Dragon, spoke on the need for these coordinators and how she welcomes them.
“It’s amazing to me that people had to just fudge their way through those scenes before those people existed,” she said. “[These scenes] put actors in really precarious and vulnerable situations. [It’s amplified for] those who are just starting out and don’t have the vocabulary to say what they’re not comfortable with. And for women, who’ll often get labelled ‘difficult’ or ‘a b**ch’ for speaking up.”
Cooke added that a good intimacy coordinator will “sense hesitation and become your voice.” Because while “showing intimacy, passion is an integral part of reflecting the human experience,” Cooke believes it can be done without actors left feeling that “a chunk of yourself has been taken.”
It’s good insight from Cooke and how she’s far more comfortable with such coordinators than others are. As it turns out, that’s not the only case.
Cooke remembers slapping her TV son
Appearing on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon this week, Cooke admitted that when she was first cast on House of the Dragon, her reaction was “immediate dread…It felt like a gargantuan job.” That, of course, makes sense given her central role and the challenges of the series.
This includes the stunt work, which may seem surprising as Alicent usually isn’t in the heat of the action. However, Cooke revealed to The I Paper that one stunt involving Tom Glynn-Carney (who plays her son, Aegon) was harder than she expected.
“I had to slap Tom Glynn-Carney in House of the Dragon,” she recalled. “He said: ‘Do it for real!’ I wasn’t sure, but the stunt coordinator told me: ‘It’s fine if he wants you to do it’… and then… 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. It was hideous. I’ve always felt sick and wanted to cry after doing any stunt work like that.”
Thankfully, Cooke has moved on from that but it shows how she relies on coordinators of various types for her House of the Dragon role to prove their worth.
House of the Dragon is streaming on HBO Max, and The Girlfriend premieres on Prime Video on Sept. 10.