The House of the Dragon cast is going to look quite different soon. A timejump is going to make the Game of thrones characters quite a bit older, and one of the incoming cast-members has described where we’ll find things in the Targaryen kingdom.
Olivia Cooke, known for drama movie Sound of Metal, will be stepping into Alicent Hightower’s shoes. Currently in the fantasy series, Alicent is best friends with Rhaenyra Targaryen, the princess. It might surprise you to hear Alicent will be the one who eventually gets closest to the Iron Throne, after she marries King Viserys Targaryen. To be fair, that’s easy as far as family drama in the Seven Kingdoms goes.
Cooke describes Alicent’s journey as one of prolonged trauma and distress. “Rhaenyra can just get away with anything, and it’s so fine,” she tells Entertainment Weekly. “The king turns a complete blind eye, whereas Alicent has always had to walk this tightrope for her whole entire life. Just the injustice of it that she feels, until things happen and she realises that none of it fucking matters. She looks around her family, and they’re all fucked up.”
In the drama series, Alicent has one of the most challenging journeys, as someone who moves up the ladder surrounded by so much horror. Cooke believes this all soaks into her emotionally and leaves her in a bleak place.
“She’s like, ‘I’ve been so perfect all my life. I haven’t taken a step wrong, and it doesn’t fucking matter’,” Cooke explains. “I think what we see in her evolution is this complete existential crisis.”
Existential crises? In the Seven Kingdoms? Shocking. To be fair, House of the Dragon has been pretty dark so far, and will almost certainly continue to get darker as we watch the Targaryen empire dissolve.
Keep an eye out for the House of the Dragon timejump in episode 6, and in meantime, check out our list of the best fantasy movies.