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House of the Dragon's Olivia Cooke auditioned for Rey in Star Wars: the Force Awakens. It did not go well
"I was really bad," says Cooke in regards to her audition for a major Star Wars character. Maybe she forgot to switch off her targeting computer

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Even the best actors have off days - House of the Dragon's Olivia Cooke is no exception. Despite her much-lauded performance as Alicent Hightower in HBO's Game of Thrones spinoff, and a handful of award nominations and winnings to her name, Cooke has had the occasional misfire audition. Like, for example, when she went out for Star Wars.
Cooke was recently a guest on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, on which she revealed something that's bound to fascinate fans of both Westeros and the Galaxy Far, Far Away. That is, that she tried out for Rey, the seminal Star Wars role that led The Force Awakens, inspired a litany of off-screen stories, and, according to reports, will lead the next trilogy of Star Wars films.
Unfortunately, the Force was not with her on that day.
"I was really bad," Cooke explained to host Josh Horowitz, "You know when you go into an audition, and you’re just not bringing it and you’ve let yourself down? You’ve let everyone down in the room. It just wasn’t it."
To be fair, Cooke was facing more than her fair share of competition, as she jokes that "everyone and their dog" was in line to try out, or more specifically, "Every British girl with big eyes." In the end, though, we'd say it all worked out - Daisy Ridley is one of the best parts of the Star Wars sequel trilogy and Cooke is absolutely crushing it as one of Westeros's most complicated figures.
On the one hand, you could say that the audition worked out exactly as it was supposed to.
House of the Dragon season 3 drops new episodes every Sunday night on HBO Max. The Star Wars series is on Disney+.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms season 1 may have wrapped on HBO Max, but with House of the Dragon season 3 coming just around the corner, it's always a great time to read up on all things Game of Thrones. Fortunately, Popverse has everything you need to journey through the George R.R. Martin-created Westeros, including:
- Popverse's Game of Thrones watch order
- How to read George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones series in order
- The biggest differences between The House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones
- The history of Westeros's greatest houses & families
- Every single dragon in The House of the Dragon so far
Plus much more coming as it gets announced!
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