House Of The Dragon: Breaking Down Each Announced Cast Member
3. Olivia Cooke As Alicent Hightower
After years on the Psycho prequel Bates Motel, Olivia Cooke got her big break into film with the Steven Spielberg directed Sci-Fi adventure Ready Player One. The role gave her a great deal of exposure and her star has not stopped rising since.
Most recently, Cooke starred opposite Riz Ahmed in the Best Picture nominated drama the Sound of Metal. An exceptional film that has been universally praised, Cooke misses out the second act entirely but her convincing portrayal of a woman addicted to more than just substances and who has a great deal of underlining pain is worthy of commendation.
Now, Cooke turns her eye to the world of Westeros and the role of Alicent Hightower, the daughter of the current Hand of the King. Despite not wanting to delve into book spoilers, there is a key piece of Alicent's backstory that HBO have chosen to leave out in their character description. It will be interesting to see if that is perhaps due to being changed or is just being held back.
Alicent is politically savvy and charismatic, she is close to the King and is being presented as an almost Margaery Tyrell type of figure.