Olivia Cooke reflects on her hardships while filming a young Norman Bates' relationship with his mother, Norma, in a modern setting. The series served as a sort of prequel to Psycho, though it changed some things about the original source material to update the killer's tale.
Cooke starred in Bates Motel as Emma Decody, a seventeen-year-old "old soul" with cystic fibrosis who frequently appeared in the series throughout its five-season run. Emma was a friend and occasional love interest for Norman, though she eventually married his half-brother Dylan Massett and had a daughter with him. Cooke went on to star in films like Ready Player One and 2019's Academy Award Best Picture nominee Sound of Metal, and currently plays Alicent Hightower in HBO's Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon.
While speaking with The Guardian, Cooke discusses the difficulties she encountered while filming Bates Motel, describing the experience as isolating due to her age and the way filming was set up for the show. According to the actor, the hardships piled up until she had a “full mental breakdown” by age 22, which she described as "bad, bad. Awful, actually." See what Cooke has to say about the experience below.
"I’m so grateful for that job, but I had a really tough time on it. 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. 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.”
Olivia Cooke's Quick Rise to Stardom Explained
Though Cooke expresses gratitude for Bates Motel as her first major breakout role, it's clear that filming the series took a toll on the actor. Thankfully, she has been able to bounce back from the struggles she endured early on in her career, seeing a steady rise to stardom since her acting debut in 2012. With the many projects she has taken on since starting out, Cooke has proven herself adept at moving between genres as well as television and film. She garnered acclaim for film roles such as the 2015 drama Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and the 2017 film Thoroughbreds before starring in the big-budget adaptation of Ready Player One in 2018. She is now set to star in Adam McKay's horror project Breeders. On the small screen side, Cooke appeared in the 2019 rom-com anthology series Modern Love, as well as the 2022 Apple TV+ series Slow Horses. House of the Dragon is her biggest television role to date.
Cooke stepped into the character of Alicent in House of the Dragon episode 6, taking over from Emily Carey after the series' ten-year time jump. She has already garnered praise from fans of the show for her seamless portrayal of the complicated character, and with House of the Dragon renewed for season 2, it's likely that Cooke will continue to delight viewers with her nuanced performance. During the wait between seasons, Cooke's fans can always return to her time on Bates Motel, which is available to stream on Peacock.
Source: The Guardian
