OLIVIA COOKE
SHE CAN HANDLE ANYTHING, EXCEPT A TOM CRUISE HANDSHAKE
You’ve had a lot going on lately, with Pixie,
Naked Singularity and Sound Of Metal.
It’s all sort of arrived at once, which is how it always goes. You know, you work, work, work. And then a year later, it looks like you’ve been extremely busy. Even if you haven’t been!
Did you manage to get any work done during lockdown?
It was a bit of a resting period. Actors, we’re a bit nomadic in a way. So I do miss the sense of travel and uprooting my life and moving to a new city for four months. But I think Helena Bonham Carter said it really well on the Louis Theroux podcast, that it’s just been this respite from being on this wheel of comparison for so long. And being pitted against your fellow actors.
Sound Of Metal has a striking opening, with your character Lou screaming a metal song on stage. What was that like to shoot?
Oh my God, it was just so nerve-wracking. And we’d rehearsed that scene for six weeks prior. I think Riz [Ahmed] had been learning the drums for a little bit longer than me, and then I came onto the project and had this whirlwind of guitar-learning and sleepless nights. It always felt quite far away, the performance. And then suddenly we’re in Boston in this club and all the extras were told to be as vocal as possible. It was just the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done. And my guitar string snapped right before we went on and I had a full-on meltdown. [Laughs] It was good.
It’s a great movie about deafness, but also a really incisive relationship movie.
Yeah. I think the way a lot of relationships pan out, it’s not filled with drama — it’s just that the people still love each other but need to carry on their lives separately. And it’s somewhat more heartbreaking, in a way, because you’ve got two people that are inherently good and care about each other a lot. Just, it’s not right anymore.
You’re shooting the new Game Of Thrones series, House Of The Dragon, and have already worked with Steven Spielberg. Did you have a plan when you were starting out? I never expected any of this to happen, because I had no model of it really back home [in Oldham]. I was on set yesterday and was just like, “This is so silly, what I do for a living.” Just the amazing sets and what I was wearing. Like, “This is insane.”
The HBO press release for the show describes your character, Queen Alicent Hightower, as “the most comely woman in the Seven Kingdoms”.
It’s hysterical. That’s something you just can’t listen to, because, I mean, there’s a lot of people in the Seven Kingdoms. I obviously haven’t met each one of them. And I’ve had many a joke sent to me by my friends, being like, “Comely!”
Have there been any particularly joyous shoots so far in your career?
Most film sets I’ve been on have been incredibly joyous. I did this tiny independent film called Katie Says Goodbye when I was 21. I was in New Mexico, which was my second time being there — the first time was horrendous, so I was a bit nervous going back, but it was just one of those life-changing experiences. I felt like I’d really graduated, in terms of finding my feet as an actor. There was no money. We were really slumming it. But it was just incredible.
You’ve had some nuts experiences along the way. Including meeting Tom Cruise on the set of Ready Player One.
Can’t remember it. Blacked out. My dialect coach said afterwards, “You know you just bowed instead of putting your hand out?” I just panicked.
What are your memories of making that movie?
We were in this kind of white box, with 150 cameras all around you and when you entered the stage you had to log in and do a T-pose, so your movements can be recorded. It was really, really cool. And also mortifying — you’re wearing these bodysuits and everyone’s got a differentcoloured crotch, so Costume doesn’t get confused which suit is whose. There was blue, there was yellow, there was green, and I got the red one. I was like, “Why have I got a red crotch?” But when you’ve got Mark Rylance and Simon Pegg, also in a suit like that, you’re like, “It’s fine.” SOUND OF METAL IS OUT NOW ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO