House of the Dragon may have elevated Olivia Cooke to the zenith of fame, but her Hollywood resume is much more diverse than the HBO fantasy epic. From historical drama and horror outings to a sci-fi film and a musical, the English actress has dabbled in a menagerie of genres throughout her career.
Olivia Cooke as Alicent Hightower in House of the Dragon | HBO
But had it not been for industry titan Steven Spielberg, Cooke may not have been where she is today.
Olivia Cooke Feels Indebted to Steven Spielberg
Vanity Fair happens to be one of Olivia Cooke‘s most illustrious works (besides the GoT spinoff, of course) wherein she stars as the penurious but cunning Becky Sharp who is adamant about climbing the higher echelons of social life by using her inherent charm. But Cooke was Art3mis long before she was Becky.
The 30-year-old actress – who led Steven Spielberg‘s Ready Player One as Samantha Cook aka Art3mis – once thanked the 77-year-old Oscar-winning filmmaker for her success. Without him, the Bates Motel star remarked, she may as well have played a maid in the ITV period drama instead of the lead role (via BBC).
Vanity Fair | ITV
If I hadn’t gone over to America, I do wonder if I’d be able to be one of the leads in an ITV drama and not just play one of the maids. I would not be doing this without Steven Spielberg. They’d have wanted Emma Watson instead.
Cooke started her acting career in British television before being cast in her first US project, which happened to be an on-screen adaptation of Robert Bloch’s 1959 book, Psycho.
She meandered through a plethora of films like Ouija and Thoroughbreds, to name a few, before finally making it to Spielberg’s virtual reality megahit. And before you knew it, Cooke was a part of one of the most sensational TV shows ever as Alicent Hightower in House of the Dragon.
Being On A Steven Spielberg Set Made Her Nervous
In one of her interviews for Ready Player One, Cooke admitted that it felt “nerve-wracking,” collaborating with a household name like Spielberg for the very first time.
Olivia Cooke as Samantha Cook/Art3mis in Ready Player One (2018) | Warner Bros.
We were on the set for 5 months…and someone would announce that Steven’s [Spielberg] on his way and everyone would be like…’Ooh, the boss is on his way.’ And the set, the set design was just, out of this world, massive.
While working with her childhood idol was certainly no walk in the park, Cooke was able to get past her fangirling stage with Spielberg and get to the “vulnerable acting” part, as she said in a Collider interview. “The novelty wore off, in the best way possible,” she said.
Ready Player One can be rented on Apple TV+ and Vanity Fair is available for streaming on Prime Video.
