house of the dragon
The third is set to debut in 2026 and its plot is strictly under lock and key. “More trauma, more turmoil, more me looking panicked and sad,” is all Cooke will divulge. Has she signed up for its fourth and final season? “If I survive number three, then I will be doing that,” she says, waggling her eyebrows in dramatic “who knows?” fashion.
class privileges
Hailing from Oldham, just outside Manchester, she comes from an ordinary background — her dad worked as a police officer while her mother was a sales rep. People in the industry told her that she needed to attend drama school and “definitely work on my accent”. She sometimes wonders what would have happened if she had stayed in the UK as opposed to America, where it “wasn’t as easy to pigeonhole me”. I ask if she heard the award-winning character actor Eddie Marsan’s recent observation that people from disadvantaged backgrounds have to be “exceptional” to have a hope in hell of success, while the privileged can afford to be mediocre. Cooke’s chestnut eyes widen in agreement: “Well, yeah! You have to work twice as hard just to have that door opened for you. If you’re growing up with no connections and no money, how are you gonna get down to London for an open audition?”
doing nude scenes in the girlfriend
Cooke admits the nude scenes presented something of a challenge. “It’s so hard not to feel insecure when only yourself and your partner and your doctor see you like that.” She skipped breakfast on the day of one such shoot, only for the nude scene to get pushed to later and later in the day. “I felt like I was gonna faint … I was like, ‘I’m not doing this any more, no way. Give me a croissant!’”
dealing with everyone taking ozempic and seeing shrinking bodies everywhere
Cooke is currently in the middle of shooting the vampire horror film Brides with Harry Lawtey of Industry fame. While on location in Budapest she decided to delete Instagram from her phone. “To not be inundated with endlessly shrinking bodies has been a relief,” she says. Ozempic, in her telling, has done wonders for those who need it for medical reasons but wreaked havoc on everyone else’s self-confidence. “I don’t think I’ve ever navel-gazed that hard about my own body until now,” she says passionately. “Not to blame this on the patriarchy, but it does just feel like another way to suppress women [and] make them even more anxious and scared about just being in a bigger body.” Still, Cooke takes her success with a pinch of salty northern humour. “I’m not as skinny as I used to be,” she says, gearing up for one final punchline. “I can get one arse cheek into a pair of trousers fitted for a fashion show now. I’m trying to have healthy self-talk when I look at myself in the mirror and be like, ‘Your arse is just powerful. It’s just too powerful for those trousers!’”
worries in her 30s
What does she worry about? “Geopolitics, my weight, my cellulite travelling further and further down my legs, climate change — the Venn diagram of being in your thirties. Ha ha ha ha!”
her ocd
Just after turning 22 Cooke had a mental breakdown and suffered in silence for years. “Panic attacks every day for three weeks,” she recalls of the initial phase, which was quickly followed by OCD and terrifying intrusive thoughts, which, at their most acute, lasted for three more years. “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. It was like you’re being tortured from within.” She was too scared to tell anybody, worried that she would be committed — or worse. “I don’t want to be too dramatic,” she says quietly, “but it got to the point where I was, like, ‘I don’t want to be here any more.’”
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