House of the Dragon’s Olivia Cooke opens up about having ‘full mental breakdown’

House of the Dragon actor Olivia Cooke has opened up about going through a “full mental breakdown” earlier in her career.

Cooke, who plays the adult Alicent Hightower in HBO’s House of the Dragon, spoke to The Guardian about the impact her high-stakes career has had on her.

Cooke has had an eclectic acting journey so far, starring in blockbusters such as Ready Player One to five seasons of Bates Motel.

Originally from Manchester, Cooke had to relocate to Vancouver to shoot Bates Motel when things began to take a turn for the worse. 

“I’m so grateful for that job, but I had a really tough time on it,” Cooke said, “the way the schedule worked, we all had different storylines, so a lot of my time was spent in this apartment in Vancouver, working once every two weeks.” 

The intense filming schedule, coupled with taking on major projects such as Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One and Thoroughbreds soon took its toll. 

Olivia Cooke is still learning to cope with the pressures of being famous. (FilmMagic/Jeff Kravitz)

She explained: “It was a big old lovely cocktail: being homesick and not knowing it, having not stopped since I was 18, being on my own for large swathes of time.”