House of the Dragon stars reveal whether Rhaenyra or Alicent would win in lip-sync battle

House of the Dragon stars Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke have revealed which of their characters is more likely to be told “shantay, you stay” in a lip-sync for your life. (Really important.)

On 16 June, the Game of Thrones prequel returns for its long-awaited second season, with D’arcy and Cooke to respectively reprise their lauded leading roles as Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen and Queen Alicent Hightower.

The official synopsis for season two reads: “With Westeros on the brink of a bloody civil war with Green and Black Councils fighting for King Aegon and Queen Rhaenyra respectively, viewers will see the house that dragons built and learn how they tore it all down.”

In a junket with GAY TIMES, D’Arcy and Cooke reflected on the themes of season two – including ‘grief, losing power and a potential civil war’ – while the former reflected on the significance of being a non-binary lead in one of television’s most championed franchises.

“Being a gender nonconforming person on screen feels like a real privilege because when I was younger, I thought that if I were to be able to act as my job, it would be quite separate from my identity, and maybe they would remain separate,” D’Arcy explained.

“I didn’t know if it would be possible for those to overlap and be in conversation with one another.

Additionally, the duo addressed the sapphic chemistry between Rhaenyra and Alicent, revealing whether they intentionally infuse their relationship with queer subtext. It was a resounding “no!” from both.

“You can only ever play the given circumstances, so these are characters who are not really in conditions that allow lust, sex, desire to come up in this space,” said D’Arcy.

“The stakes are too high and the grievances, the catastrophic events, are too big.”

On an extremely important note, we asked D’Arcy and Cooke the following: ‘If both queens were forced to lip-sync for their life on the main stage of RuPaul’s Drag Race, who would be triumphant? And which song would they lip-sync to?’

Cooke immediately responded with ‘Love is a Battlefield’ by Pat Banatar. “Very 13 Going on 30,” she said, before revealing the song that reminds her most of D’Arcy is Orville Peck’s country cover of Lady Gaga’s LGBTQIA+ classic ‘Born This Way’.

As for who would win, Cooke laughed, “I think I might”, to which D’Arcy agreed: “You absolutely would.”

With the amount of powerful women in the Game of Thrones franchise, we also questioned the stars on how iconic female characters, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Elle Woods, would fare in Westeros. (Again, so important.)

House of the Dragon premieres 16 June in the UK on Sky Atlantic.

Watch our very serious interview with Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke here or below.



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