‘House of the Dragon’ Star Olivia Cooke Warns Arts Industry Is Becoming ‘Homogenized’

Olivia Cooke has been candid about the hurdles of breaking into the entertainment industry as a working-class actor with a northern accent. She is perhaps best-known right now for her role in House of the Dragon, the HBO series currently in its third season.

Season three premieres on HBO Max, Sky Atlantic, and Now, the U.K. streaming service, on 22 June. The endgame is already in sight, as the show is set to conclude with its fourth and final season.

Speaking to The Guardian, Cooke opened up about how her family views her massive success and the gap between where she came from and where she has landed.

Despite her global success, her own mother is no longer entirely buying the working-class label.

“She’s like, 'you’re not working class anymore,'” Cooke laughs. “I think my sensibility is still working class. I just have become, against all odds, very successful in my field.”

Cooke also addressed what she sees as a serious problem facing television, film, and theater: the risk of becoming completely “homogenized” and “boring” without proper funding for youth arts programs.

“There is a huge amount of talent to be found in these places, but you need to fund them, and it can’t just be the Harrow and Eton lot, because you’re only going to get one side of the story, and it’s not going to be truthful,” she said.

In her view, limiting opportunities to those from Britain’s most prestigious private schools means audiences only ever get one perspective, while funding drama workshops in working-class areas would uncover a much wider range of voices and stories.

Her passion for the subject stems from personal experience. Cooke began attending the Oldham Theatre Workshop, a local youth group at the end of her street, at age eight. She has dryly traced the origins of her performing instinct to growing up the eldest of two daughters in a divorced family, recalling a lot of “Look at me, love me” energy as a kid.

As arts funding faces increasing pressure, Cooke was direct about her frustration with the political response. She said, “I thought with a Labour government, these things would be prioritized, but it feels like it’s not,” referring to Britain’s current Labour government, which came to power in 2024.

She also made the case that creative spaces matter beyond just producing the next generation of performers.

“Even if you don’t want to be an actor, it’s important to have a place to go and express yourself and not be locked in your room on your phone. You’re able to develop social skills. Children today are so isolated. And with the rise of the manosphere, the antidote to that is play and showing boys that they can be tender and emotional and that it’s beautiful and cool and mind-expanding to be on stage,” Cooke said.