Olivia Cooke has recently shared her disappointing audition experience for the 2015 movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Olivia Cooke has made a name for herself with her iconic role as Alicent Hightower in HBO’s House of the Dragon, a Game of Thrones prequel. With Game of Thrones’ legacy attached to it, the show was bound to blow up, and with it, the talented actress also gained prominence, having earlier impressed the audience with her performances in ventures like Sound of Metal, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, and Bates Motel.

But she was once trying to make it big through a Star Wars Role that did not go as planned.

Olivia Cooke did not have the Force on her side when she tried out for Star Wars. The 32-year-old House of the Dragon actress denied rumors that she was considered to play Kelly Marie Tran's Rose Tico in The Last Jedi during a recent appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. However, she disclosed that she did try out for Rey in The Force Awakens.

“I think I auditioned once in L.A. and then once with J.J. [Abrams]. And I was s***. I was really bad,” she recalled.

She told host Josh Horowitz about the audition experience, which was not what she expected. The actress told the host that she had the feeling a person has when they are going in for an audition, and they do not bring their A game, and that is what she felt while auditioning for the role.

Cooke acknowledged in the podcast that being rejected for the role of Rey was nothing compared to losing the role in the romantic drama Endless Love in 2014, when she was just 19 years old. She cried herself to sleep over losing the role to Gabriella Wilde. So, losing the Star Wars role was relatively a soft blow.

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However, that worked out for the best as she went on to do some amazing work in movies and television, especially House of the Dragon. 

The recently released first episode of the third season of House of the Dragon had a major subplot with Olivia Cooke’s Alicent at the center of things. She has been plotting to move against her own sons to help Rhaenyra seize the Iron Throne. But why would she do such a thing when she was the person who started this Targaryen civil war in the first place?

The answer to this is not simple. One argument can be that she has realised that none of her sons have the capability to rule the Seven Kingdoms. Another possibility points toward this being a ploy to lure Rhaenyra into a trap. Which one is true can only be known when more episodes drop.

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How do you think Star Wars: The Force Awakens would have turned out if Olivia Cooke had gotten the role? Share your thoughts.