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The House of the Dragon star said seeing Billy Bob Thornton in a jacuzzi was “formative.”
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Her A Talent for Murder costar, Alden Ehrenreich, said he had a similar experience watching Hook.
Who knew holiday movies could provide such… joy?
During a sit-down chat with Entertainment Weekly at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival, House of the Dragon star Oli3’s Bad Santa
The racy topic of conversation came about after Cooke’sA Talent for Murdercostar Helen Mirren said Bad Santa is her favorite holiday movie. “I love it,” the actress told EW.
“Is that Billy Bob Thornton?” Cooke asked, to which Mirren replied, “Yes.”
Cooke, looking aghast, confessed that she had “a formative” experience watching the movie.
“With Bad Santa?” fellow costar Alden Ehrenreich asked Cooke.
“I had a very formative sexual, like, thing,” she went on, as Ehrenreich reminded her she was “on camera” and Mirren shushed her.
“It was… never mind,” Cooke said as Ehrenreich pressed her to continue. “I had an awakening, watching Billy Bob in a jacuzzi,” she continued. “An awakening, yeah.”
In the dark comedy Bad Santa, Thornton plays Willie, a miserable, heavy-drinking con man who dresses up as Santa with his elf sidekick (Tony Cox) to rob department <a href="https://comicvibe.com/toys-r-us-announces-its-opening-120-new-standalone-stores/” title=”Toys 'R' Us announces it's opening 120 new standalone stores“>stores on Christmas Eve. Willie has a sexual relationship with Sue (Lauren Graham), including the aforementioned hot tub scene.
“I’ll tell him that when I see him,” Mirren told Cooke of filling Thornton in on her secret.
Ehrenreich then admitted he also had a formative moment watching a movie as a child.
“I have that with the mermaids in Hook,” he admitted of the 1991 fantasy adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Robin Williams. “When they kissed him to bring him back to life. I was kind of, like, 4 or 5 and I was, like, ‘Something… I feel things that I don’t understand.'”
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Cooke and Ehrenreich star alongside Mirren in A Talent for Murder, an adaptation of Joanna Murray-Smith’s 2014 play Switzerland. The movie, directed by Anton Corbijn, follows famed crime novelist Patricia Highsmith (Mirren) as a young literary agent (Ehrenreich) is sent to convince her to pick up her famed Tom Ripley series. The film is slated for release on Oct. 23.
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