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Both Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke were able to do so much with their relatively small screen time as the older versions of Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and Queen Alicent Hightower in the HBO series House of the Dragon (splitting time with Milly Alcock and Emily Carey, who played the characters’ younger counterparts in the first half of the season). D’Arcy and Cooke made the best of being thrown into the fire as they offered viewers amazingly layered approaches to their respective roles. In a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, the duo discussed what the “passing of the torch” was like and how different their situation was from co-stars Paddy Considine (King Viserys I Targaryen) and Matt Smith (Prince Daemon Targaryen), who didn’t face taking on roles already established by other actors earlier in the season.
D’Arcy & Cooke’s Journey to House of the Dragon
“It was about three months of self-taping in my living room in the middle of the pandemic, so it was amazing. Actually, it felt like living on an island and trying to make cinema or something because I didn’t see anyone or really do anything, but supposedly I was in conversation with one of the biggest TV shows in the world,” D’Arcy described in their audition process. “My partner and I cobbled together a wig out of literally a bag of hair, and then after three months of doing that, I was invited for a four- or five-hour in-person audition, did that, and then after that, I was told, ‘You’ll hear something next week.’ And then I didn’t. Then I was told it was probably not going my way. And I thought, ‘Wow, it’s a real shame.’ I went to the countryside, just for the weekend, to start metabolizing, and at the end of that weekend, I had about 14 missed calls from my agent. I spoke to him the next morning to hear, ‘They changed their mind! Do you want to do it?’ So weird, honestly. A very solitary process that went on seemingly half a year.”
“Similar to Emma, it was almost like it gave me a bit of a purpose in lockdown,” Cooke said. “It was like clocking in for work. I started off with a tape for Rhaenyra. And then they were like, ‘Can you have a look at these sides?’ which were for Alicent. And then they went back to Rhaenyra and then to Alicent again, which was my final audition. Then, somewhere in between that, I had a meeting with [co-showrunners] Ryan [Condal] and Miguel [Sapochnik] about my tapes and how they saw Alicent. They were basically coaching me on how to get the job in my next tape, which was really, really lovely. And it felt good. But then they put me on hold for two weeks —”
“That’s exactly what happened to me! It’s insane!” D’Arcy added. “They call, and they’re like, ‘We want you to play the part,’ and you’re like, That’s as good a sign as you’re going to get,’ and then two months later, you’re still fucking auditioning. It’s insane.” “That was at the end of August where they were like, ‘We’re going to put you on hold. Don’t take any jobs,'” Cooke explained. “I was like, ‘It’s the pandemic. I’m not going to get any jobs!’ And then two weeks turned into six weeks, and then, in the middle of October, I got a call from all my agents, which is usually a good sign that you’ve got the job.”
When it came to preparing for the roles, “We both went on a bit of a deep dive into ‘Game of Thrones’ — because neither of us had seen it before — and read the book, read the scripts, chatted endlessly with Ryan and Miguel and [writer and executive producer] Sara Hess,” Cooke said. “And that was it, really. I didn’t really do much soul-searching or anything like that.” When came to D’Arcy learning High Valyrian, “My phrase book would need to be close at hand. But I can do the basics. I can order you a cappuccino or hail a cab or whatever,” they said. “I really enjoyed that process. I was lucky because I had a big High Valyrian monologue, but I didn’t have lots of dialogue sections in it. It’s a fully operational language, so I think it’s really satisfying to unpick the thing. We get sent the English translation, the High Valyrian, a phonetic translation, and then also audio recordings, and one [method] would be to try and parrot back the audio recordings. It’s ideal as an actor to be able to command the language you’re having to use. I had a really nice time using gestures, for example, to embed meaning into unfamiliar language. And now I have an incredible rolling R. So really, it’s paid back dividends.”
For more, including how Cooke prepped for Alicent’s rivalry with Rhaenyra, how both stars decompress after filming days and their most challenging scenes, you can check out the entire interview here.
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