House of the Dragon Stars Admit They HATED That Viral TikTok Meme

House of the Dragon star Olivia Cooke was NOT a fan of her viral TikTok moment during the Season 1 press tour. 

If you can’t remember back to 2022: Cooke (who plays the older version of “Queen” Alicent Hightower) was doing press promos with her House of the Dragon co-star Emma D’Arcy (the older version of Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen). One of the promo concepts had the two actresses asking each other questions they randomly picked out of a bowl. 

Cooke got the question “What’s your drink of choice?” To which D’Arcy responded, “Negroni Spagliato with prosecco in it.” Cooke clearly thought the choice of cocktail was pretty extravagant because she responded with the word “Stunnin!” in a full Manchester UK accent that viewers weren’t necessarily used to hearing from her (based on roles in Bates Motel, Ready Player One, or Me and Earl and the Dying Girl). The quote of Cooke saying “Stunnin!” became a viral meme on social media platforms like TikTok, and before House of the Dragon was even a breakout success, Cooke had to deal with the new reality of being TikTok famous: 

“I did hate it [the meme] for a very long time,” Cooke explains to EW in a new interview, before sharing an anecdote exemplifying why: “I was in the pub. A woman opened the door for me and she said with a thick Spanish accent, ‘Stunnin’!’ I was just like, ‘Oh my God. Over a decade’s worth of work reduced to a single word in my lexicon.”

D’Arcy is much more zen about the whole thing, saying, “I don’t have anything illuminating to say on it because it’s very hard to know how to react when you become a meme.” 

Cooke also revealed more context behind the meme-inspiring moment – which wasn’t at all as glamorous or ingenious as some fans may think: “We were put into this room and we were just so jet-lagged… We were just trying to make each other laugh. There’s no rhyme or reason to it,” 

Well, that was back in 2022, when Olivia Cooke and Emma D’Arcy still had no idea what kind of mainstream attention they would get for House of the Dragon. Fast-forward to 2024, and the two stars can’t even get through filming without being all too aware of what the next House of the Dragon viral TikTok will be: 

MILD SPOILERS: Apparently, there will be a promo video, title sequence or some kind of scene in House of the Dragon Season 2 that sees Alicent and Rhaenyra standing together on a life-size chess board. Now, both Cooke and D’Arcy are TikTok savvy enough to know they’re walking into a clear meme-field: namely, the popular Harry Potter chess scene meme: 

“Honest to God, when we walked on and I saw the chess board, I was like, ‘Well, this is over.’ It’s in my head the whole time,” Cooke admitted. “I was like, ‘This is torture. We physically cannot do this.’… It’s just sad how you work for eight months and it f—ing gets reduced to a f—ing TikTok, and that makes me sad.”

House of the Dragon Season 2 premieres on June 16th.