We have a while to go before we see new episodes of House of the Dragon, where Olivia Cooke and Emma D'Arcy play rival family leaders Alicent Hightower and Rhaenyra Targaryen, currently fighting for control of the Seven Kingdoms. In the meantime, Variety got them together for a fun little video where they answer questions to find out how well they know each other:
This is a pretty low-impact interview I think is trying to build off the viral magic of Cooke asking D'Arcy about their favorite drink that one time. We learn that Emma D'Arch is a Cancer and Cooke a Capricorn, that D'Arcy went to art school at Oxford but doesn't seem to want to talk about it, and that it takes D'Arcy a lot longer to get out of costume than it does Cooke; D'Arcy has to wear one of those complicated Targaryen wigs, after all. Those don't just lift out.
The most surprising thing for me was learning that Olivia Cooke once appeared in a "tour video" for One Direction, once the biggest boy band in the world. She even got a piggy-back ride from Harry Styles, who went on to become easier the most successful member of the band after it broke up. She was 17 years old. "It was like 250 quid on a Saturday...so I was like, 'yeah,'" Cooke remembered.
That's a fun little story to share at parties, no? My cursory sweep of the internet didn't turn up the video in question — as Cooke says, it's buried in "the bowels of the internet — although they show off a snippet of it around the 02:11 mark.
Who would survive longer in Westeros?
Cooke and D'Arcy agree that Cooke would last longer in Westeros, if only because the healthcare at that time was so much worse. "Contemporary health care is keeping me alive," D'Arcy says. I'm not 100% sure what they're talking about, although they have discussed having issues with migraines before.
The pair also remember first meeting at the house of former House of the Dragon showrunner Miguel Sapochnik in 2020. "It was just us two being thrown into the precipice of something we didn't quite understand yet," Cooked recalled. Since then, they've made two seasons of this Game of Thrones prequel series and are currently working on a third. Unfortunately, it'll be a while before we see it; I'm banking on a 2027 premiere date on HBO and HBO Max.
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