House of the Dragon Star Olivia Cooke Says I Did Hate Becoming a Meme With Negr

September 2024 · 4 minute read

“House of the Dragon” stars Olivia Cooke and Emma D’Arcy have started the promotional train for Season 2 of the “Game of Thrones” spinoff by gracing the cover of Entertainment Weekly’s latest digital issue, but they’re still somewhat haunted by one insanely viral moment from their Season 1 press tour. That would be the Negroni Spagliato meme.

It all started when Cooke and D’Arcy were flown from San Diego Comic-Con in July 2022 to San Francisco to shoot promos for “House of the Dragon.” HBO tasked the two actors with asking each other questions on video. Cooke told EW they “were put into this room and we were just so jet-lagged,” and the viral moment was born when Cooke asked D’Arcy the following question: “What’s your drink of choice?”

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“Negroni Spagliato with prosecco in it,” D’Arcy answered, which prompted Cookie to let out in her Greater Manchester accent: “Stunnin’!”

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That one word ended up following Cooke around throughout the entirety of “Dragon’s” first season rollout, much to her annoyance at first.

“It’s just sad how you work for eight months and it fucking gets reduced to a fucking TikTok, and that makes me sad,” she said, noting that she’s now a lot more aware going into “Dragon” Season 2 promotion about what potential bit could end up overtaking the press tour.

“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,” D’Arcy said.

“We were just trying to make each other laugh,” Cooke added. “There’s no rhyme or reason to it. I did hate it for a very long time. 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.”

Cooke and D’Arcy eventually learned to love the meme, realizing that its widespread popularity on social media had everything to do with their infectious chemistry. They’ll be making the press rounds pretty routinely as “House of the Dragon” Season 2 kicks off June 16 on HBO and Max.

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