Emma D'Arcy, Olivia Cooke slay the “House” down in EW's “House of the Dragon” cover shoot

Get intel on what to expect from season 2.

Emma D'Arcy and Olivia Cooke are here to slay... looks, not each other.

The two stars might be fighting on screen in House of the Dragon, but there's only love between them on the London set of Entertainment Weekly's Summer TV Preview cover shoot, where they share exclusive insight into what's coming when season 2 hits HBO and Max on June 16.

D'Arcy says their character, Rhaenyra Targaryen, "is somewhat unleashed this season," adding, "This season really investigates rage and maybe in particular a woman's rage." As for Rhaenyra's childhood-friend-turned-adversary Alicent Hightower, Cooke explains, "All of a sudden she's of no use to anyone. She's done what she was supposed to do — put her son on the throne — and now she's discarded. Who is she if she can't be the person to implement wisdom?”

Before season 2 delves fully into the Dance of the Dragons, the bloody civil war that broke out within the Targaryen empire hundreds of years before HBO's Game of Thrones, D'Arcy and Cooke first turn up the heat for the cameras. See their photos below.

Stunnin'

The chemistry between D'Arcy and Cooke is what gives House of the Dragon its flavor. Fans felt it instantaneously with the now-famous Negroni Spagliato meme, the seemingly innocuous moment when Cooke asked D'Arcy about their drink of choice and it blew up into a TikTok-wide sensation.

“I did hate it for a very long time," Cooke admits to EW. "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 adds, “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."

Blacks vs. Greens

House of the Dragon is all about the war between Rhaenyra and her half-brother Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney) for control of the Iron Throne of Westeros. Rhaenyra's supporters take the nickname "the Blacks," whilst Team Aegon is known as "the Greens." D'Arcy and Cooke rep their respective colors.

Reclaiming the narrative

Sara Hess, a lead writer on House of the Dragon with series co-creator Ryan Condal, was interested in exploring the ways women are often written out of history. George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood, which serves as their source material, mentions Rhaenyra and especially Alicent less and less in this particular section that they're adapting.

“It’s a benefit and a hardship, in that there's not as much road map there,” Hess says of filling in the gaps the book leaves in Rhaenyra and Alicent’s story. “We had to flesh out all of those things, but I think it is a benefit in that we're not going against anything that's in the book. It's not that it’s saying Alicent did this and we're having her do something else, it's that she disappears from the narrative. It's really interesting to think about because women do disappear from historical narratives.”

Hell hath no fury like a Rhaenyra scorned

D'Arcy says season 2 "absolutely hits the ground running" after the events of the season 1 finale, which saw Rhaenyra's son Lucerys Velaryon (Elliot Grihault) die as she also grappled with the loss of her throne.

“Rhaenyra is a person devastated. She’s rigid with grief,” D'Arcy says. “Grief can be a really dislocating force. It can separate us from our family, from our friends, from our allies, almost as if the bereft person remains with the dead. And, of course, she's going to have to find some way of traveling back to the world of the living in order to fight for her inheritance.” 

Targaryen realness

D'Arcy is still contemplating what their next move will be after headlining the next Game of Thrones, but one thing is on their wish list: RuPaul's Drag Race. "It is on my radar. It's not something that I have ever dared dream, but it is on my radar," they say.

We can see it now. The runway challenge: Targaryen realness.

Cooke-ing with gas

Cooke never saw Alicent Hightower as a villain, despite what audiences might think.

"She is such a product of her circumstance," the actor says. "She has been groomed to be this immaculate chess player within the game of thrones. So I just felt, how else would she be? There's no way that she could have grown up to have a gooey center. There's something that's been cauterized along the way in order for this stalwart sense of duty. I just have this huge amount of empathy for that because it's no life at all. Her life was never hers to lead."

Spreading some Greyjoy

Cooke ended up filming an indie movie called Visitation earlier this year with Game of Thrones veteran Alfie Allen (Theon Greyjoy). While the two only had a small amount of time together, they did brush over their connection to the franchise.

"We only had one day together, but it was really nice," Cooke recalls. "He's such a lovely man, and we didn't really talk about it. He had not seen [House of the Dragon]. I was like, 'That's fine.' I can sort of gather what that experience was like, and I don't think whoever I meet on the show needs to rehash their experience."

Mama bear

Rhaenyra watches over her younger children during a moment at Dragonstone, the ancestral seat of House Targaryen.

Problem child

Alicent speaks with one of her sons, Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell), who was the one to accidentally kill Lucerys when he lost control of his dragon, Vhagar.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown

Being King of Westeros isn't all it's cracked up to be, apparently. At least not for Aegon.

The Wolf of the North

Season 2 will take viewers to both new and familiar places, including Winterfell. Jacaerys Velaryon (Harry Collett) arrives in the North to act as an emissary for his mother, Rhaenyra. He meets with the current lord of Winterfell, Cregan Stark (Tom Taylor), known as the Wolf of the North.

New blood

Lord Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint) meets with Alyn of Hull (Abubakar Salim), a sailor in the Velaryon fleet who served in the Stepstones campaign. He, along with his brother Addam of Hull (Clinton Liberty), will be prominent figures in the events to come.

Preparing for war

Here's a behind-the-scenes look at House of the Dragon co-creator Ryan Condal.

“Season 2 is the march to war,” he says. “It's really a cold war because each side is trying to undeniably win the throne for themselves without going to all-out dragon war. We do that through plotting and backstabbing and assassination and spy games and all the things that you would see in a classic James Bond Cold War thriller.”

Read more about House of the Dragon season 2 in EW's Summer TV Preview cover story.

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