Olivia Cooke, who plays a younger version of Alicent Hightower, is one of the many new characters making their debut in the world of Westeros in the television adaptation of the first Game of Thrones prequel, titled House of the Dragon. Alicent, the daughter of the King’s Hand, has been described as “the fairest woman in the seven kingdoms.”
Olivia Cooke has avoided the limelight for most of her career, although early in her career she appeared in a number of critically acclaimed films and hugely popular television episodes. Considering she’s set to play the pivotal role of Alicent Hightower in HBO’s highly-anticipated Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon, she probably shouldn’t settle too much for the secrecy that is being revealed she currently enjoys.
You may or may not know the following information about Olivia Cooke and her family, but here it is just in case.
A few quick facts
Full name | Olivia Kate Cooke |
Date of birth | December 27, 1993 |
Place of birth | Oldham, Greater Manchester, England |
Age | 28 years old |
profession | actress |
active years | 2012-present |
Father | John Cooke |
mother | Lindsey Wilde |
sister | Eleanor |
Height | 5′ 5½” (1.66m) |
nickname | live |
education | Royton and Crompton Academy, Oldham Sixth Form College |
Known for | Becky Sharp in the miniseries Vanity Fair (2018) |
When Olivia Cooke was a young child, her parents divorced
Lindsay Wilde and John Cooke welcomed a daughter and named her Olivia Cooke. After the dissolution of her parents’ marriage when she was still a small child, she moved with her sister to live with her mother. In her formative years it must have been difficult for her to be physically separated from her father. On the other hand, her mother is a good mother and fed her well.
She made her acting debut when she was just eight years old with the Oldham Theater Workshop, a local theater company that offers after-school programs. She attended Royton and Crompton Academy while studying acting at Oldham Sixth Form College, but left school before graduating from high school to be part of the drama series Blackout.
She played the role of Maria in the college production of West Side Story. Soon after, she landed a role in Prom: The Musical, produced by the Oldham Theater Workshop and based on the Cinderella story. This was her first and only other role of any note. At the age of 14 she founded her first local agency which paved the way to commercial opportunities.
Additional information about their parents
Her mother had a career in sales, while her father had served as a police officer in the past. If you imagined that the fact that Liv’s father was a former police officer helped her keep order as a child, your assumption seems wrong.
The Thoroughbreds actress admitted in an interview with Interview magazine that she was “just pretty crazy” when she was a teenager. She also admitted that she often went to clubs in a bodycon dress and stiletto heels. “You’ll be embarrassed.”
In her late 20s, the one-time wild child became more critical of some of the things she did when she was younger.
One Direction’s music video featured actress Olivia Cooke
Olivia Cooke appeared in the “Autumn Term” tour video for One Direction.
Speaking to SyFy in 2021 for her film Little Fish, in which a virus causes widespread, sudden memory loss, Cooke was asked which memory she would rather lose. In the film, the virus is the catalyst for memory loss. She added that she would like to erase the memories of using a fake ID in Manchester when she was 17 from her mind.
While it wasn’t Cooke’s first acting career, her appearance in the music video for One Direction’s song “Autumn Term” was one of the roles that helped raise her profile and get her more attention. She was asked to perform a party trick during the interview, and she did the splits in response to the request. This eventually led to her being hired for the position.
She was just 17 when she made her debut in the One Direction music video. Even in the music video, Harry Styles can be seen riding her on his back. Cooke was paid two hundred and fifty pounds sterling for her role.
The prestigious drama school to which Olivia applied rejected Olivia’s application
If you’re serious about pursuing an acting career, there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA), which is one of the most well-known theater schools in the world. If that’s the case, there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of RADA.
Some of Hollywood’s most famous actors, such as Andrew Lincoln, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Anthony Hopkins, to name a few, have attended the renowned institution since its inception in London in 1904. The year 1904 marks the beginning of the institution’s history. It turns out that Olivia Cooke was about to join the ranks of prominent RADA alumni.
The beginning of the end for Cooke and I May Destroy You. Paapa Essiedu and Hero Magazine got together for a “head-to-head” discussion, covering a wide range of topics and talking about everything from their early work to their most recent ventures.
Essiedu once quizzed Cooke about her time in drama school, and the actress, best known for her role in Pixie, admitted she did it despite the fact that she made it to the last round of the RADA audition process had, ultimately was not accepted.
Cooke wasn’t overly upset by what had happened, having received the letter of rejection from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art on the same day she was cast as the lead in The Quiet Ones. This meant she was positive about the situation.
She co-starred with Hunger Games: Catching Fire breakout star Sam Claflin and Jared Harris. This is just an illustration of the saying, “When one door closes, another opens.”
The actress can’t help but think about her own sister when she plays Olivia in Naked Singularity because their characters are so similar
Olivia Cooke says the character she plays in Naked Singularity closely resembles her own sister in real life. The 28-year-old actress – who stars in the comedy-drama film alongside Bill Skarsgard and John Boyega – admits that Eleanor, her younger sister, is in some ways a part of her role in the film.
She explained that while filming the film in 2019, she couldn’t help but notice how much the role resembled my sister. She claimed that this revelation blew her mind. What she said was: “She had the same topknot, eyelashes and nails as then, although she had changed in some ways since then. I wanted to play that kind of role without really ripping her off or pissing her off, just as a woman from Brooklyn. I thought that would be interesting.”
It tells the story of an idealistic young prosecutor in New York City who, after becoming disillusioned with the system and seeing signs the cosmos is collapsing around him, makes the decision to stop one of his clients from a multi-million dollar drug deal robbing dollars. The protagonist of the story is an idealistic young prosecutor in New York City. Olivia plays the only female character in the film, which otherwise features all male characters.
Olivia Cooke’s Relationship Status: Will She Stay Single?
Despite the fact that she is a famous person and often in the spotlight, Olivia has made it her mission to maintain the privacy of her personal life at all times. It seems that she has no boyfriend at the moment.
There are reports that Christopher Abbott and Olivia Cooke were dating a few years before 2020 when they decided to end their relationship. According to a number of different reports, the couple only started dating in 2015. The two people have yet to confirm their relationship to the public.
When Olivia and Christopher had just started dating, they were often spotted together at public events like awards shows and movie premieres. When exactly the two people started dating is currently unknown.
The 31st Annual Film Independent Spirit Awards were held in Santa Monica, California and Christopher Abbott and Olivia attended the event.
A few years later, in 2019, Daily Mail was able to obtain photos of the two engaging in intimate behavior. People were led to believe that Olivia and Abbott ended their relationship because they didn’t see the two together after that event.
According to The Sun, their romance “fizzled” while they were both on lockdown.
The publication quoted an anonymous insider as saying, “They’re at important times in their acting career and they just couldn’t make it work.” Cooke casually referenced the “big breakup” that was about to happen in an interview with W magazine her test for the role of the House of Dragons took place. The statement was fleeting.
In addition, there were previously rumors that she was once in a relationship with British actor Alex Roe. In August 2014, Roe was seen holding hands with Olivia. That was before Roe became famous for his roles in films.
The English couple were on their way to the Arctic Monkeys performance that evening when they encountered some traffic. They didn’t reveal if it was a date or if they were romantically linked or not. The rumors are quickly becoming less widespread.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, she used Instagram as a dating application
Cooke revealed to Square Mile that she took to Instagram during the lockdown because she was “lonely and single at the time”. She did so in hopes that she could “slip into someone’s DMs,” but the experiment wasn’t very successful because none of her followers responded to her messages. Cooke joined Instagram to start dating as soon as she discovered it.
Cooke began filming Me and Earl and the Dying Girl in 2014 as the lead actress Rachel Kushner, who was then diagnosed with leukemia. She could have worn a skullcap for the scenes where her character was undergoing chemotherapy; Instead, however, she shaved her head because she wanted to appear more real in the role.
As a result, Cooke required a wig for her role in Bates Motel, which cost Fox Searchlight Pictures $10,000, and they paid for it. The English actress went to extraordinary lengths to play a character suffering from such a debilitating illness, even going so far as to visit real life cancer patients at UCLA Children’s Hospital to get a better understanding of their daily lives and experiences.
According to Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, the film’s director, Cooke’s decision to shave his head the day before livened the set while sequences were shot the next day. It seems Cooke’s bold decision paid off in the end, as the film picked up two grand prizes at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.