House of the Dragon and The Girlfriend star Olivia Cooke has signed herself up for a lot of sex scenes – but that doesn’t make them any less ‘mortifying’.
The Oldham-born actress, 31, has become a household name thanks to her performance as Alicent Hightower in the Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon.
And recently she’s become the leading star of Prime Video psychological thriller series The Girlfriend, alongside House of Cards actress Robin Wright.
While the sex is toned down in House of the Dragon in comparison to its raunchy predecessor, Olivia has still been required to perform sex scenes on set.
Meanwhile, The Girlfriend has been slapped with a 15 certificate while its IMDb Parents’ Guide warns of ‘sex references and dialogue throughout’ and explicit scenes.
But Olivia has admitted that, despite eagerly signing up for these shows and loving the work, she does feel as though preparing for the sex scenes she acts out can be ‘mortifying’.
She told The Sun: ‘It’s odd, isn’t it? It’s an odd part of the job. You see it looming in the schedule and you’re like, Jesus Christ! For some reason, it’s all happened to me as I’ve turned 30.
‘My career at the moment is like the humiliation of Olivia Cooke,’ she added, speaking about how she sometimes feels behind the scenes.
One notable scene from The Girlfriend features Olivia’s character Cherry Laine (according to IMDb) ‘graphically masturbating in front of a male who begins to join in’.
Olivia continued: ‘I’ve got an amazing dresser called Alexandra Bland, who has been with me since House of the Dragon. I’m very, very comfortable anatomically with her – she’s seen it all.
‘But you have to wear these intimacy garments — sort of nudity covers — which are basically like a bit of gusset with a silicon pad in it that you have to tape to yourself.’
The Thoroughbreds actress then revealed that while struggling to apply one of these nudity covers, Alex jokingly told her to ‘bend over’.
She explained: ‘And so I bent over and I’m spreading. It’s so mortifying. But I rise above and disassociate, out of my body - this is weird, this is odd.’
The Girlfriend is based on the novel of the same name by Michelle Frances, and follows the story of Laura (Robin Wright), a mum who becomes suspicious of her son Daniel’s (Laurie Davidson) new girlfriend Cherry (Olivia).
All six episodes were made available on Prime Video on September 10, with critics responding positively – it currently has an 88% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
In recent weeks, Olivia has been filming her scenes for the third season of House of the Dragon, which is expected to premiere in the summer of 2026.
Olivia took over the role of Alicent Hightower from Emily Carey, who played a younger version of the character in the first five episodes of the series before a significant time-jump required a change of actors.
The Girlfriend is available to stream now on Amazon Prime.
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