“I Couldn’t Be More Obsessed With You”: Olivia Cooke, in Conversation With Cooper Koch

If you were paying close attention to this year’s Wimbledon Championships, you might have spotted actors Olivia Cooke and Cooper Koch bonding in the stands in their matching beige Ralph Lauren tuxedos. Though they hadn’t met before their tennis date, the two hit it off immediately. More recently, while in Coastal Majorca on a secret break from the House of the Dragon set, the 31-year-old British actress called up her new bestie to talk about her other major project, The Girlfriend, streaming now on Prime Video. The ruthless six-part thriller, based on Michelle Frances’ bestselling novel, follows the tug of war between a medical student’s working-class girlfriend, played by Cooke, and his well-heeled mother, played by Robin Wright. And while Cooke is proud of her work on the series, she isn’t quite sure she wants to see it herself. “There’s a lot of sex scenes in it,” she told Koch, who’s no stranger to getting naked on camera, having starred in Ryan Murphy’s Monster: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. “I’m like, do I want to watch this?” As the Emmy-nominated actor prepared to join Andrew Garfield and Monica Barbaro in Italy to film Luca Guadagnino’s forthcoming Sam Altman biopic, he joined Cooke on Zoom last month to talk tennis, doom-scrolling, and her acting origin story.

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OLIVIA COOKE: Cooper, thank you so much for doing this.

COOPER KOCH: Oh my god, I’m so excited.

COOKE: Where are you?

KOCH: I am in Beachwood Canyon in Los Angeles. Where are you?

COOKE: I’m in Majorca. I’m sort of taking a secret vacation from work. I’m off for three weeks and they don’t know that I’m here, but I’m scared to tell them.

KOCH: House of the Dragon?

COOKE: Yeah. I’m scared to tell them in case they go, “Oh, well we do actually need you for a costume fitting.”

KOCH: No, don’t tell them. Last time we were together, we were being tennis fans and we became friends.

COOKE: I was a very serious tennis fan. You and my boyfriend were trying to explain to me the rules of tennis. Me, black out drunk, having not a clue what was happening.

KOCH: They do really feed you alcohol there.

COOKE: How was the finals? 

KOCH: The final was extraordinary. It was so fun. I was happy that [Jannik] Sinner won.

COOKE: Me too.

KOCH: We were texting while that was happening.

COOKE: I was like, “He looks locked in. Is he locked in?”

KOCH: Oh, he was locked in. So was I. And how are you feeling?

COOKE: Well, I’m feeling very chilled at the moment because I’m on holiday. But I’m nervous for the show to come out.

KOCH: Why?

COOKE: Well, I’ve not seen it and I sort of can’t bring myself to watch it.

KOCH: But they’ve given it to you to watch?

COOKE: Yeah, and I’m just—

KOCH: Choosing not to?

COOKE: Well, how do you feel about this, when you get sent links and you have to watch it on your own?

KOCH: I usually can’t do anything but go and watch it, even if I’m terrified.

COOKE: Really?

KOCH: Yeah, but maybe that’s different case by case.

COOKE: Candidly, there’s a lot of sex scenes in it and I’m like, “Do I want to watch this? I don’t think I want to watch that.”

KOCH: Well, just from the trailer, it looks hot.

COOKE: [Laughs] Thanks.

KOCH: You’re working with that actress…

COOKE: First-timer.

KOCH: She’s pretty cool. Had you worked with her before? Her name’s Robin Wright, by the way…

COOKE: Robin Wright. A little independent, little-known actor. [Laughs] No, I hadn’t worked with her before and she’s amazing. She directed it as well. She’s fucking phenomenal. Really scarily intelligent and fierce and funny, and really adept at her knowledge of the camera and angles. And an amazing actor. And also, she’s done it all before, so she knew how mortifying and embarrassing and vulnerable making those sorts of scenes can feel. She was sort of like a sage when it came to discussing all the sexiness because that is a real energy to the show, this undercurrent of sexuality and how they use it. But god, it’s fun when you’re inhabiting the world, and then when you realize that it’s going to be on television.

KOCH: And that can be kind of jarring.

COOKE: How did you separate that in your head when you did the Menendez brothers?

KOCH: I kind of forgot while we were doing it because once you’re two, three months in, you’re so close to everybody and you kind of forget that it’s actually going to come out. Or maybe I unconsciously choose to forget that that’s a thing. 

COOKE: You have to. You can’t really be vain.

KOCH: Did you feel really comfortable and safe when you were doing this stuff? 

COOKE: Yeah, and [we worked with] a really great intimacy coordinator as well, Jen Odell. She was amazing and really fun. I’ve been doing this for 13 years and even that’s a relatively short amount of time. I worked for the majority of my career without intimacy coordinators, and you always felt chunks of yourself were being sort of taken. Whereas  with this, it’s just like, “Oh, you can tell the story and not feel like you are having to give away something.”

KOCH: Just having them there probably makes you feel the extra amount of safety.

COOKE: And to have someone in the corner of the room be like, “That looks great. You’re doing really well, sweetie.”

KOCH: “Your butt looks amazing in this shot.”

COOKE: “Arch your back, Olivia, and look like you’re into it a bit more.” I’m like, “I’m sorry, I was thinking about lunch.”

KOCH: [Laughs] Because I’ve only seen the trailer, can you tell me a little in a nutshell who this person is? Was this something that you had to audition 8 billion times for? Or did this kind of come from Robin? 

COOKE: Well, I was really lucky. It sort of landed on my desk. I read the pilot. And it’s sort of an age-old tale about a working-class girl who wants to rise the ranks of society in whatever way possible. She falls in love with this guy who is from a very upper-class world, but his mother is very protective of him and sees through my character’s mask, so she’s choosing to omit certain details from her checkered past.

KOCH: Very interesting.

COOKE: So there’s a bit of a war of estrogen between my character and Robin’s character, which is so fun because I feel like for women and queer people, the ability to read someone is so innate.

KOCH: Well, we have to learn how to do that in order to protect ourselves. Sometimes to a fault, maybe. Do you think you would ever want to direct?

COOKE: I’d love to direct. I wouldn’t want to be in it. I don’t know if I’ve got the capacity to do that. Directing is so fucking hard, and then for Robin to also star in the show.

KOCH: You said that you have been doing—

COOKE: [Laughs] Have you prepared for this? Bless you.

KOCH: I haven’t…

COOKE: Oh good. This is off-the-cuff. You’re doing good.

KOCH: I know we got to hang out at Wimbledon and we became fast friends. I immediately felt a connection to you. You are my queen. And that’s what I said to you when I met you. 

COOKE: I know. I was like, “Oh my god. What a sweet, sweet lad.” 

KOCH: But I don’t actually know very much about you or how it all started for you or why you love acting. 

COOKE: That’s because we just got into it and started talking about very deep stuff and forgot all about the base-level friendship stuff immediately.

KOCH: We talked about our love lives.

COOKE: We did. How did I get involved? I am from North Manchester. I grew up working class, went to this after school workshop and there weren’t many things on offer in my town specifically apart from this theater workshop. So I started going there when I was eight and met all my best mates and fell in love with this form of expression.

KOCH: Was there a moment you remember specifically? Where you were like, “Fuck, I’ve got to do this shit.”

COOKE: That didn’t come ‘til much later because I never backed myself and never thought that this would be a viable option for me in terms of a life and a career. But it was more the community—I felt free and able to develop and express in a way that was really liberating. I don’t think I’d ever felt that before. I love where I’m from, but there’s also a very specific way in which you should act and comport yourself. But it’s so important for children to be silly and unselfconscious, especially with the advent of fucking Instagram. We’ve got cameras and mirrors everywhere and people are so aware of how they look.

KOCH: You know what? I’m sorry to interrupt you because—

COOKE: No, please.

KOCH: I know I just asked you a question, but there’s something that’s been bothering me recently. This is the first opportunity I’ve had to talk about it. I’ve been seeing videos of people, for example, with The Devil Wears Prada being filmed in New York, and then Spider-Man stuff, people line up outside and film them on their iPhones. There’s something about it that has been really bothering me. One, because you’re sort of spoiling it for everybody by then going and posting it. And two, these people are at work. It’s one thing to be in front of the camera and be vulnerable and do your job, but then it’s another thing when you feel all of these eyes on you. I’m also like, “Just wait for the movie to come out.”

COOKE: And it gives people an opportunity to see a scene or a clip of the film unedited, not graded, without any backstory or context, and then critique how they look. It doesn’t feel celebratory at all.

KOCH: I get it. The making of film and TV is still so fascinating to people. When you’re watching something, you’re like, “How do they make it seem so real?” So there’s such a fascination to want to get inside and see, but it comes at the expense of the privacy of making that. It takes a sort of sacredness away from it, and that’s the problem with the iPhone.

COOKE: You don’t have Instagram, do you?

KOCH: No. Do you?

COOKE: I do. 

KOCH: What’s your relationship with social media or your phone in general? I’m still bad, even though I don’t have Instagram. My partner is like, “Can you put your phone away?”

COOKE: I got it in 2020 because I was like, “I’ve got to make some money somehow. Gone are the days of being mysterious, Olivia.” [Sips beer]

KOCH: [Laughs] Is that a beer?

COOKE: It is. Well, it’s 6:20 PM.

KOCH: Girl, I want a beer.

COOKE: What is it, 9:00 AM where you are?

KOCH: It’s 9:00 AM. Should I crack one open? Okay, sorry. Your relationship with your phone…

COOKE: God, I hate it.  But it’s this monster that needs to be fed.

KOCH: Do you doom scroll?

COOKE: Well, do you know about Brick? I press the brick to my phone and it blocks me from all the apps that I need to not be on. Like Twitter, which is a hellscape.

KOCH: Twitter is a dark place. And I will say, sometimes you do need a brain rot moment, but it can be hard to come out of that. Two hours later and you’re like, “Fuck, what have I been doing for the past two hours?” It has stolen a lot of my creative side. Are you a reader, by the way? Do you read a lot?

COOKE: Yes, I do. I’m reading a lot of history at the moment.

KOCH: What are you reading right now?

COOKE: Oh god, it’s really lame. Let me show you. 

 

KOCH: Wait, you’re in a bikini? Were you swimming?

COOKE: I just came from a diving competition with my pals. 

KOCH: I couldn’t be more obsessed with you.

COOKE: Get on a flight and get here now. We’ve got a spare room.

KOCH: Well, I’m going to be in Italy for the next month. Is that close to where you are? Where are you again?

COOKE: I’m in Majorca, so it’s not far. [Shows her book]

KOCH: Okay, what is this?

COOKE: I’m reading The Britannias and it’s about all the islands surrounding Britain and how women forged the way on the islands.

KOCH: That’s interesting. What’s your character’s name in the show, by the way?

COOKE: Cherry.

KOCH: Whenever I find a character that I really love or connect to, it sort of opens up my soul in a way. Do you feel that way?

COOKE: You know what? It was really nice because I find anger to be an emotion that’s hard to connect with, even though I know that I’ve got tons of it deep down and repressed. So the fact that this character was so angry and not afraid to show it was really cathartic. I loved doing that. 

KOCH: We’re just chatting. I’m loving this.

COOKE: Wait, where in Italy are you going to be?

KOCH: I’m going to be in Turin shooting a movie. It’s called Artificial. It’s the Luca Guadagnino movie about Sam Altman and Open AI and ChatGPT. 

COOKE: Oh my god. That’s amazing. Congratulations.

KOCH: Thank you.

COOKE: Turin is so beautiful.

KOCH: It’ll be fun. I’m really not pulling a lot of weight, so I get to go and play and vibe and watch Andrew Garfield crush it. And Stu, my partner, is going to come meet me in Turin and then we’re going to fly to Sicily, go to Palermo, spend a night in Cefalù, which is his favorite town in Sicily. And then we’re flying to New York and going to the US Open.

COOKE: You’re so obsessed with tennis.

KOCH: I am. [Laughs] And then we fly home to L.A. for the Emmys. It’s a crazy summer into fall.

COOKE: Wait, was that an amazing birthday when you woke up and you got the nomination?

KOCH: It was great. You never know with these things, but it looked positive. And I’m going to be blunt about that—I wanted it. So I kept telling my brother before it happened, “It doesn’t make sense to have it not happen and then the next day be our birthday…” That doesn’t align with how the week and the summer is supposed to go.

COOKE: With the campaigning and the press of it all, it makes you want it even more because all roads lead to that.

KOCH: Yeah, it’s hard to put that out of your mind. So when is this show coming out?

COOKE: It comes out September 10th on Amazon. And it comes out all at once so people can binge it.

KOCH: I’m going to binge the fucking shit out of it.

COOKE: Thank you.

KOCH: And then FaceTime you.

COOKE: Please do. And if you ever fancy a weekend in London, you’re more than welcome to come to me.

KOCH: Oh, I would love that.