Olipisode 4. | Photograph by Ollie Upton/HBO
House of the Dragonis currently in the thick of pre-production, gearing up to film its fourth and final season next year, but for its talented ensemble cast there’s always plenty to do elsewhere. Olivia Cooke has played Alicent Hightower in all three seasons of the series so far and will obviously return as a major part of the show’s big finish, but if you miss seeing her in the Red Keep, her other show Slow Horsespremiered its sixth season in September, bringing Cooke’s character Sid Baker — who was presumed dead since season 1 — back into the fold.
Cooke had a strange run in House of the Dragonseason 3, where Alicent primarily served as a figure of fixation for her son, Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell), who kissed her in the season premiere and went on to have a vision of a sex scene with her later in the season, just before Alicent tried to poison him. This plotline was extremely controversial among fans. And it was around the time the show was debuting it that Cooke took the steps of deactivating her social media accounts, stepping away from all the online chatter.
Now she’s spoken about that choice in a profile with GQ Magazine, where she discusses everything from the “ugliness” in the House of the Dragonfandom, to her evolving relationship with mental health and why it was best to unplug.
Olisense
Alicent Hightower’s storyline in House of the Dragonseason 3 was one of the more divisive among fans of the series and its source material, George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood. While Cooke has always been an exceptional performer as Alicent, the show seemed to not quite know what to do with her in season 3 — and as a result, this storyline with Aemond fantasizing about his mother became one of the central pillars of her journey, at times even detracting from one of her most prominent book arcs, where she is Rhaenyra Targaryen’s (Emma D’Arcy) prisoner in King’s Landing.
Online, it became a common refrain to hear fans lamenting this storyline, and how it wasted Cooke’s talents in particular. GQcomments that “Some [fans] turned their frustration on Cooke herself; others cast her as an unwilling victim of the directors,” and that sounds just about right to me as a watcher on the Wall of this fandom. Despite this, Cooke is clear to GQthat these readings of the season and her part in it are “bullshit.”
“I think some of those interpretations just catch fire, and they become something that bears no resemblance to what was shown on the screen at the time,” she said. “There’s a lot of ugliness to that fandom as well. It’s steeped in misogyny. There’s a lot of racism. I try to let it take up minimal mental real estate.”
Cooke gave particular credit to director Clare Kilner, who is one of the lead directors on House of the Dragonthat helmed episodes 2, 3, and 4 of this season. That means she was behind the camera for Alicent’s sexual assault at the hands of Lord Jasper “Ironrod” Wylde during the Fall of King’s Landing, for those keeping track.
Despite the difficult material, Cooke clearly loves working with Kilner, praising how she proves that “you don’t have to stomp around the set and exert testosterone. You can just handle each department with kindness and care.”
House of the Dragon Season 3 World Premiere | Mike Marsland/
Cooke also spoke more broadly about her decision to turn off socials. “I was just like, I’m on this too much. It’s not nourishing,” she explained. “I think the celebri-fied nature of being an actor has now snowballed into this monster. And I just think we need to get off this train and realise that we make these TV shows and films, yes, for escapism, but also because it’s artful and it’s creative and it’s not for followers or for a brand deal or to get free shit. Even though that is nice sometimes.”
Cooke has largely been enjoying the time off, as part of a six-month break following production on both House of the Dragonand Slow Horses. She’s finally turned her Instagram back on as of October 2026, but has continued to keep it more at arm’s length than before.
“Even replying to a DM from someone that is semi-famous or wholly famous, that’s anxiety,” she said. “I don’t know this person. It’s so weird. We might have had a nice interaction where we’ve liked each other’s stuff. But I don’t know. Why do I then now feel like I have to be smart and charming for this person that I don’t know?”
History proves Oli
While it’s nice to hear that cooke is reorienting her relationship with social media and taking the time and space she needs, it’s also a little sad to hear how the star of a show that so many millions of viewers love was driven to need that space in the first place. It certainly isn’t the first time — young Alicent Hightower actress Emily Carey famously deleted her Twitter account during season 1 after being bombarded with homophobic comments, while Fabien Frankel, who played the much-hated villain Ser Criston Cole in the show’s first three seasons, turned comments off on his Instagram during season 3 due to fans conflating him with the loathsome character he plays on screen.
As for Cooke’s claim that the House of the Dragonfandom has some “racist” parts as well, we only have to look at the tiresome backlash to Steve Toussaint’s casting as Corlys Velaryon, which somehow remains a talking point in some online fan circles even now, with the show about to reach its conclusion.
The phenomenon of a fandom being so precious with its beloved worlds that it mistreats that actors in adaptations is certainly not unique to Westeros, but Cooke’s words absolutely ring true. I’d like to hope that at some point, our fandom can get back to a place of celebrating these worlds more than cutting down those who inhabit them on screen. For now though, it’s just good to know that Cooke is in a space where the online vitriol is reaching her less than it did before.
House of the Dragonseason 4 is slated to begin filming in early 2027, for a premiere date sometime in 2028. Until then, our watch continues.
