British Actors You Should Know: Olivia Cooke

Olivia Cooke, born in 1993 in Manchester, was the sort of child who liked to put on performances in the front garden with her friends. At the age of eight, she joined the Oldham Theatre Workshop, an after-school drama program in her hometown, whose alumni included Anna Friel and Suranne Jones. Cooke attended Royton and Crompton Academy; however, she responded to an open-call audition at the age of 14 and landed herself an agent. To the alarm of her parents (a divorced couple, but solid working-class people), she left Sixth Form College before taking her A-levels, which could have been a disastrous move. Instead, she landed her debut role in the 2012 BBC One drama series Blackout at the age of 16, and appeared in three episodes, kicking off a career that hasn’t stopped since. 

Despite her agent telling her it was unnecessary since her carer was already in full swing, Cooke auditioned for RADA (The Royal Academy of the Dramatic Arts), the more traditional training for a British actor, when she reached the age to go to university. She made it all the way to the final round, before being told she didn’t make the final cut. Cooke says in interviews that she considers herself an actor who learned on the job. “I think these past 12 years have been my film school,” she recently told Elle ahead of Season 2 of the hit series she now stars in, the Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon.

Let’s take a look at her career!

Christopher Eccleston headlines Blackout, a three-part gritty northern drama that aired on BBC One in 2012. Eccleston stars as corrupt councilman Daniel Demoys, whose destructive behavior leads to blackouts from heavy drinking. His family, including his daughter Meg (Cooke), suffers from his alcoholism. When Daniel goes on a bender one night, it results in a torrid affair with a woman he meets in a bar and the killing of a local businessman to whom he's awarded expensive contracts, neither of which he remembers the next morning. 

While the local detective (Andrew Scott) is investigating him, and Daniel himself is trying to piece together what happened while also sleeping with the detective's wife, his attempts at redemption actually get him elected mayor. The series was not particularly well-liked (I wonder why), but it did get nominated for several BAFTAs, and it's interesting to see Cooke in her first role, playing an innocent whose life is falling apart.

Blackout is available as a streaming rental on Amazon Prime.

Directed and written by Joe Ahearne and based on the book by James Herbert, The Secret of Crickley Hall is a supernatural-horror, dual-timeline drama. Eve (Suranne Jones) and Gabe (Tom Ellis) are Londoners who seek healing after one of their children disappears. Naturally they move to the country into a large and creepy house, which is haunted. As time passes, Eve starts to believe her missing son is somehow connected with the house, which has a dark history. 

During World War II, Crickley Hall was an orphanage for evacuee children, run by Augustus Cribben (Douglas Henshall) and his sister Magda (Sarah Smart). The bereaved children were treated with great cruelty and had only one ally in the house, teacher Nancy Linnet (Cooke), who was horrified by the abuse and determined to save her charges. The past and the present merge as Eve joins forces with her to save all the children, including her lost son. Suitably creepy and beautifully filmed, watch this one with the lights on.

The Secret of Crickley Hall is streaming on BritBox.

Cooke's next move was to the U.S. when she bagged a leading role in the series Bates Motel, a contemporary prequel to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Emma DeCody (Cooke) suffers from cystic fibrosis and debates whether she should risk a lung transplant, although, at this point, she doesn't know that a romantic involvement with young Norman Bates (fellow Brit Freddie Highmore) is a far more dangerous option. The series explores the bizarre relationship Norman has with his mother, Norma Louise Bates (Vera Farmiga). 

Note Cooke's splendid American accent, which she credits Highmore for helping her learn. She got so good at it that most viewers had no idea she was British, making her one of our "Undercover Brits" series. (There was literally a Season 2 behind-the-scenes clip that proclaimed, "Olivia Cooke is Not American!") Another one to watch with the lights on. Created by Anthony Cipriano, Carlton Cuse, and Kerry Ehrin, the series boasts a huge team of writers and directors.

All five seasons of Bates Motel are available on Prime Video.

With a screenplay and direction by Alfonso Gomez-Réjon, Me & Earl & The Dying Girl is a smart, funny, touching movie, so much more than a "cancer romance" (I didn't know that category existed!). It's the story of a trio of misfits: Greg (Thomas Mann), who spends most of his time making his versions of classic movies with his friend, Earl (RJ Cyler), and whose mother decides that befriending Rachel (Cooke), who has cancer, will provide him with direction. It's not a romance, but the relationship between Greg and Rachel is far more profound and meaningful than a teen love story. 

Molly Shannon has a sweet cameo as Rachel's mother, coming to terms with the possible loss of her child.

Me and Earl and The Dying Girl is streaming on Max.

Cooke triumphs in ITV's 2018 production of Vanity Fair, Thackeray's portrait of Regency England (including the Battle of Waterloo)done as a co-production with Amazon Studios. Michael Palin (of Monty Python fame) wrote, produced, directed, and portrayed Thackeray himself in the production. Cooke, naturally, plays the infamous Becky Sharp (ahem, excuse me, Rebecca, Lady Crawley), the cynical social climber who uses her charms to fascinate and seduce upper-class men, paired against Bridgerton's Claudia Jesse as her BFF from school, the clingy, dependent Amelia Sedley.

The series' terrific cast also includes Johnny Flynn as Dobbin, Tom Bateman as Rawdon Crawley, Martin Clunes as Sir Pitt Crawley, Francis de la Tour as Lady Matilda Crawley, and Anthony Head as Lord Steyne. Cooke produces a perfect blend of cunning and charm, as she takes London society by storm.

All episodes of Vanity Fair are streaming on Prime Video.

Set in the elite Connecticut suburbs, former best friends Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Amanda (Cooke) are reunited in Thoroughbreds. Amanda has severe emotional problems that are not explained, and it's her mother's idea to get the two young women together again. Lily, always the more academically minded one, now has an expensive boarding school education under her belt and a prestigious internship on her resume. Amanda, a psychopath incapable of feelings, is a social outcast with a sharp wit, whereas Lily is full of conflicting emotions, and just wants to kill her stepfather, Mark (Paul Sparks). They hire outcast druggie Tim (Anton Yelchin) to do the dirty work.

The brainchild of Cory Finley, a first-time director and screenwriter who'd previously written for the stage, Thoroughbreds received rave reviews at its premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Warning: Amateur horse euthanasia in the first few minutes of the movie. 

Thoroughbreds is streaming on Hulu.

Modern Love was the sort of half-baked anthology series that got carelessly greenlit during the height of the streaming wars by services with too much money, too many people saying yes, and not enough long-term strategy. Inspired by the New York Times column of the same name, it supposedly explored relationships, love, and human connections, but in reality, it was just a bunch of short one-two-episode films loosely structured together that would never have been made separately. It lasted two seasons; the second hit the buzzsaw of the pandemic, was released with zero fanfare, and disappeared into the unmarketed ether.

This episode, "Hers Was a World of One," explores the experiences of a couple, Tobin (Andrew Scott) and Andy (Brandon Kyle Goodman), who yearn for a family. Although warned that using a surrogate mother may complicate the adoption process, they are matched with Karla (Cooke), a stranger who is both nomadic and homeless. She moves into their apartment, and there's some friction as they discover how vastly different their lives are. This scene shows the birth of their baby.

Both seasons of Modern Love are streaming on Prime Video.

The Good Mother stars Hilary Swank as Marissa Bennings, a newspaper journalist who's finding that print is failing. When her estranged son Toby (Jack Reynor) is murdered, she forms an unlikely alliance with his pregnant girlfriend Paige (Cooke) to find out what really happened. They discover her son was involved in fentanyl dealing and uncover further dark secrets in the town. 

This had all the hallmarks of one of those movies someone thought would be awards bait, with Acamedy award winner Swank and paired with the up-and-coming Cooke, and a limited release in September. Sadly, the efforts of director/writer Miles Joris-Peyrafitte and writer Madison Harrison resulted in a gloomy and predictable film. And who is the good mother of the title? Marissa or Paige?

The Good Mother is streaming on Hulu.

Apple TV+'s first breakout British drama series, Slow Horses, is a spy thriller based on the Slough House novels by Mick Herron. "Slough House" is where incompetent MI-5 agents are sent who cannot be fired because they know too much but cannot be allowed back out in the field, lest they bungle another job. Of course, these bunglers discover all sorts of undercover schemes that endanger the U.K., and since no one takes them seriously, they have to band together to save the country themselves.

The ensemble cast is led by Gary Oldman, Jack Lowden, and Kristen Scott Thomas and boasts a stellar group of guest stars every season. Cooke was initially part of the planned main ensemble as Sidonie "Sid" Baker, who was supposed to be a mainstay. Unfortunately, she then landed a minor part as a widowed Queen in Westeros and had to fly dragonback to another network, exiting after only three episodes.  

All seasons of Slow Horses are streaming on Apple TV+, with the next one expected in December.

Ruben Stone (Riz Ahmed) and his girlfriend Lou (Cooke) are the heavy metal duo Backgammon, in Sound of Metal, an emotional movie directed by Darius Marder, who also wrote the screenplay with Abraham Marder. Drumming keeps Ruben's demons at bay, but when he begins to suffer intermittent hearing loss, he has to face the fact that he is going deaf, and may never regain his hearing. Fearing that Ruben may turn to heroin again after four years of being clean, Lou insists he attends a substance abuse program for people who are deaf, led by Vietnam vet Joe (Paul Raci). 

Ruben has trouble coming to terms with his deafness and Joe's approach that deafness is not something that needs to be fixed. He leaves the group when he decides to go ahead with cochlear implants and now has to decide whether he and Lou will continue as musical and emotional partners. Cooke did not get nominated for her role, but both Ahmed and Raci were nominated for Academy Awards and the film for Best Picture in 2021.

Sound of Metal is streaming on Prime Video.

Did we call the Queen of Westeros part minor? Oops. Cooke stars in House of the Dragon as Queen Alicent Hightower, the leader of the Green Faction in the Targaryen Civil War, in this complex and visually stunning series. Alicent is the mother of the newly crowned young king Aegon (Tom Glynn-Carney) and far more suited to rule second son Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), widow of King Viserys I, and daughter of the Hand of the King (Rhys Ifans), but even so, she is essentially staging a coup, as her husband was clear he wanted his daughter, Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy), to inherit, to "right the wrong" that his own elder sister, Princess Rhaenys (Eve Best), was passed over for him during the Great Council of 101. 

However, the rift between the two halves of the family isn't just political; it's personal, as Alicent and Rhaenyra were the closest of friends and still yearn for each other, to the extent that the fandom refers to them as Rhaenicent. But as the bloodshed rises and the Targaryens trade body blows and "a son for a son," the chances of anyone living happily ever after seem slim.

House of the Dragon Season 2 is streaming weekly episodes on HBO and Max. All episodes of Season 1 are also available.

What’s coming up next for Cooke? She’s starring opposite Jamie Bell in Takes One To Know One, a romantic comedy directed by Nathalie Biancheri, and written by Brooke Baker. It’s Cooke’s first time producing a film with her production company, Chippy Tea, created in 2021. 

Also coming our way on Amazon Prime, is a psychological thriller series, The Girlfriend, based on Michelle Frances’s 2017 book of the same name. It stars and is directed by Robin Wright as a woman whose life turns upside down when her beloved only son brings home a new girlfriend, Cherry (Cooke).