House of the Dragon star Olivia Cooke gets real about the show’s toxic fandom. Stepping into the cutthroat, dragon-riding world of Westeros sounds like an absolute blast, but wearing that crown in real life comes with a pretty exhausting digital tax. While playing in one of television's biggest fantasy sandboxes brings tons of love from passionate fans, the internet's darker corners can get pretty rough, pretty fast. 

Calling out the heavy dose of toxicity and downright ugliness floating around the fandom as season 3 rolled out, Olivia Cooke shared how she's keeping her mental peace intact and refusing to let online noise crash the party.

During a recent sit-down with British GQ, Olivia Cooke revealed that the arrival of House of the Dragon’s third season this past summer served as the final straw that prompted her to detach herself from the digital world entirely. Naturally, navigating the fiercely passionate - and occasionally ruthless - fandom surrounding HBO's flagship fantasy universe is no walk in the park.

Queen Alicent found herself at the center of a massive storm this season, courtesy of some jaw-dropping, deeply controversial narrative beats - ranging from a reluctant, uncomfortable kiss with her own son to a bizarre daydream sequence involving incestuous undertones. Unsurprisingly, the internet had plenty to say, with some viewers turning their misplaced frustrations directly onto Cooke, while others bizarrely cast her as a helpless victim trapped by the creative team.

“There's a lot of ugliness to that fandom as well. It’s steeped in misogyny. There’s a lot of racism. I try to let it take up minimal mental real estate,” said Cooke.

Reflecting comments from online corners like Reddit, where sympathetic users lamented her involvement and hoped her paycheck was worth the trouble, The Girlfriend star firmly shut down those pitying narratives as absolute nonsense. She further told GQ that she prefers to focus on the positive, praising her golden working relationship with director Clare Kilner, whose collaborative, kind, and thoughtful approach on set proves that powerful leadership does not require ruling with an iron fist or toxic testosterone.

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In an effort to keep her mental health intact and sane, she has spent most of her off-time this year on self-care.

Rather than leaning into trendy wellness fads - which quickly fell flat after a brief, half-hearted flirtation with olive-oil shots and vibration plates - Olivia Cooke spent her downtime taking a much more grounded approach to self-care. The true turning point, as she shared, came after an extended, trial-and-error journey with antidepressants before finally landing on the correct dosage. Admitting to GQ that she wishes she had taken that step much sooner, she reflected candidly on the reality of her mental health journey, noting that accepting her brain's chemical imbalance was simply a process of getting her head around the science of it all.

Olivia Cooke is working on a number of fascinating projects right now, such as the psychological thriller Switzerland, the vampire horror movie Brides, and another horror movie called Visitation. But what most fans would like to see next from her is the final season of House of the Dragon, as the series is currently at a very interesting turn where things do not look so good for her character.

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Do you agree with what Olivia Cooke noted about the House of the Dragon fandom? Do let us know.