Olivia Cooke Shocked Her ‘House of the Dragon’ Co-Star With a Wildly Realistic Pubic Hair Prop
There are behind-the-scenes horror stories, and then there are the kinds of anecdotes that make talk show audiences gasp and cackle in equal measure. Olivia Cooke, who plays Alicent Hightower in HBO’s ‘House of the Dragon’, has firmly carved out a reputation as one of television’s great on-set mischief-makers, and her latest retelling of a particular prank is doing very well for itself online.
The Oldham-born actress recently appeared as a guest on The Claudia Winkleman Show, airing on BBC One and BBC iPlayer, where she joined Ralph Fiennes, Anna Faris, and comedian Michelle de Swarte on the sofa. The promotional appearance was pegged to the upcoming season of ‘House of the Dragon’, but it was a deeply unscripted confession about life on set that ended up being the most talked-about moment of the evening.
Cooke revealed that during filming, she once shocked her co-star Fabien Frankel, who plays Criston Cole, by wearing an oversized, fiery-red merkin during an intimate scene. For context, a merkin is a theatrical pubic wig used in film and television production. Cooke explained the logistics of the scene, noting that Frankel was positioned beneath her character’s skirts, and that actors in such situations are required to wear protective modesty garments. Rather than leave it at that, she decided to turn the whole thing into a prank.
Speaking on the show, she described going to the costume department and requesting “the biggest, hairiest merkin” she could get, specifying that she wanted it to be “fiery red to match my hair.” She called the result incredible. What followed was not quite the lighthearted giggle she had anticipated.
When Frankel encountered the prosthetic, he leapt to the other side of the room, entirely convinced it was real, leaving Cooke to wonder aloud whether she had made a terrible mistake. In her own words, she described him as “really stricken with anxiety from that experience,” which was considerably more alarming than the laugh she had hoped for.
This is not the first time the story has made the rounds. Frankel himself described the incident in an interview with Elle, recalling that the merkin “looked like she had a sort of furry animal between her legs,” and that he screamed and threw himself out from under her dress. He also mentioned, with the weary energy of someone who has not quite recovered, that a photo exists.
Cooke revisited the tale on the Reign podcast with Josh Smith, going into further detail about the scene and confirming that her reaction at the time was uncontrollable laughter.
The anecdote resurfacing on The Claudia Winkleman Show has sent the clip viral all over again. Fans responding to the segment described it as “funny as hell,” with much of the added entertainment coming from watching the other guests on the sofa react in real time.
What the story also captures, perhaps unintentionally, is something genuinely interesting about how these actors navigate the awkward choreography of shooting intimate scenes. The use of modesty garments, intimacy coordinators, and protective padding has become increasingly standard on high-profile productions, and yet even within that careful framework, Cooke managed to find room for chaos.
Whether that speaks to her particular brand of confidence, a coping mechanism for the inherent strangeness of the job, or simply an irresistible comedic opportunity is probably a question only she can answer.
For fans of ‘House of the Dragon’ who have spent two seasons watching Alicent Hightower navigate the suffocating constraints of the Red Keep with icy composure, the contrast could not be more delightful. The woman playing one of television’s most controlled and emotionally repressed queens turns out to be the person most likely to commission a theatrical prop purely for the purpose of scaring a colleague.
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