‘House of the Dragon’: Olivia Cooke Says Alicent Shares 1 Quality With Cersei on ‘Game of Thrones’
House of the Dragon takes place centuries before Game of Thrones. The game hasn’t changed much though. House of the Dragon star Olivia Cooke sees parallels between her character, Alicent Hightower, and the original series’ Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey).
Cooke was a guest on the House of the Dragon podcast on Sept. 2, the night episode 7 aired. Here’s why Cooke compares Alicent to Cersei. New episodes of House of the Dragon premiere Sundays on HBO Max.
Alicent on ‘House of the Dragons’ and Cersei on ‘Game of Thrones’ have 1 thing in common
Cooke hinted that she’s a little frustrated at the frequent comparisons of Alicent to Cersei. However, there is one area in which she agrees they are similar.
“I know these two characters get compared to each other a lot and I do think they’re very different, but Cersei, not a very nice person but she loved her children so much,” Cooke said on the House of the Dragon podcast. “And that motherly instinct I think we can all really relate to, or that instinct to nurture no matter who it is. We can all tap into that and we can see the humanity there. There has to be humanity in these characters. Otherwise, it doesn’t feel real.”
Olivia Cooke understands Alicent’s ‘House of the Dragon’ beef with Rhaenyra
After skipping ahead 10 years, both Alicent and Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) have children. Cooke said watching Rhaenyra be a great mom frustrates Alicent, too.
“I think that annoys her ultimately,” Cooke said. “She’s the mother that Alicent wishes she could be. I don’t think there’s empathy there. I think that’s just another cause for Alicent’s resentment because again, it’s something that she’s doing better than Alicent ever could. Or something that she’s just naturally gifted at and takes completely for granted.”
Alicent struggles with motherhood
King Viserys (Paddy Considine) married Alicent when she was still a teenager. Cooke sympathized with Alicent’s struggle to be a mother before she was ready.
“It’s children bearing children, isn’t it?” Cooke said. “I don’t think she has the motherly capabilities at first. To have a child at, I think we said 14, how do you become a mother when you’ve not got a mother yourself and no one’s parenting you. I just think as her children grow up and as she grows up with them, that relationship has been severed from the beginning and she’s trying to bridge the gap with them.”
Alicent’s kids don’t help.
She’s trying with Helaena to comfort her but Helaena doesn’t want to be touched and she doesn’t understand why her favorite daughter, she probably longed for a daughter to impose a motherly daughter relationship that she never had. She has these children that just bring her so much sadness and sorrow and she feels like such a failure because she’s got no control over it either. So everything else in her life has to follow this strict regimen because that’s the only way she can get order in her life when she’s supposed to be a parent to these children and everything she tries to implement just ricochets off them. And the one son that does love her, Aemond, is a weirdo nightmare. Like you, of all of them.
