Finally Someone Said Something About Those Age Gaps in House of the Dragon

Happy House of the Dragon summer to all who celebrate. If you haven’t kept up with the dragon show, there is still time! But be warned—shit gets confusing: There are a lot of characters, they all have blonde hair, and all their names sound slightly similar.

It gets even more confusing when a mid-season time jump results in nearly the entire cast being swapped for different actors, and all of a sudden you’re perusing A Wiki Of Ice and Fire on a Sunday night because you don’t know which blonde boy is which. Thankfully, the mid-season 1 time jump brought us Olivia Cooke as Alicent Hightower. However, as her Targaryan children were recast to reflect aging, Alicent remained frozen in time because, in Hollywood, women don’t age past 30, and 25-year-olds can still enroll at Euphoria High. On Monday, Cooke appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast to promote the new season, where she addressed the weirdness of the age gap (or lack thereof) with her on-screen children and Hollywood’s refusal to let women age.

“When I found out that Tom Glynn-Carney was like auditioning for my son, I was like, ‘What?’” Cooke said. “Are they going to recast Alicent again and do another age jump? How’s this going to work?”According to canon, Alicent is a teenager when she gives birth to her eldest son, Aegon. In reality, Cooke (32) is only 1 year older than the actor now playing Aegon, Glynn-Carney (31), and 3 years older than Ewan Mitchell (29), who plays Alicent’s other son, Aemond. Opposite Cooke on the HOTD marquee is Emma D’arcy, playing Rhaenrya, who is 10 years older than Harry Collett, who plays her eldest son, Jacaerys. And I know this type of thing happens all the time in casting, but a one-year age gap is just insulting, and Cooke agreed the choice was “odd.”

“I feel many things about it.” Cooke said, “Is this just the industry? Is this just Hollywood? They don’t want to see women age, you know? I think it’s a big leap for the audience to make.”

“Or maybe I’m just a fantastic actor,” she added. Well, she’s not wrong. Cooke is brilliant as Alicent–she might be one of my favorite aspects of the entire show–but I do wonder how an older actress might embody the older Alicent differently. (It also doesn’t help that Cooke reads young.) I’m not rooting for her to be recast. If anything, the showrunners are at fault for casting a 31-year-old man as the son of a 32-year-old woman. Still, I will be seated in front of my TV every Sunday for the next seven weeks. 

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