Including the hilarious instruction she received from her intimacy coordinator

After two years away, House of the Dragon is finally back on our TV screens with the first episode dropping in the US last night (16th June). And amongst a trip to Winterfell, Rhaenyra grieving the death of her son Lucerys, and Aegon being a surprisingly nice king to his people (who knew), we also had the major update that Alicent and Criston Cole are now sleeping together. And Olivia Cooke, who plays Alicent, has opened up about filming said sex scenes with Fabien Frankel, who plays Criston.

Ahead of the release of House of The Dragon, Olivia spoke with Cosmopolitan UK, where she revealed the process of working with the set intimacy coordinator, and the hilarious instruction she was given while filming.

Olivia praised their intimacy coordinator, saying: “She was a physical boundary for us, which was amazing, and she was the one who would go up to the directors and say what we were and were not comfortable with, which just takes the awkwardness out for the actors. Because you’re then not having to petition for your own boundaries, and your own safety.”

HBO / Sky

Olivia continued to say because of the intimacy coordinator’s help filming, the sex scenes became similar to choreography, although her relaxed nature with the scenes then led to Olivia being given an unusual instruction.

“It becomes a little bit like choreography, so much so that you know I was really grateful to her,” she explained. “But one day she came up to me and we were doing a sex scene and she was like, ‘Olivia, can you just arch your back, and look like you’re into it a little bit more.’ And I was like ‘great thank you’ because I was thinking about everything else under the sun.”

While the first season of House of the Dragon was full of steamy sex scenes, this is the first time we’ve seen Alicent on screen having sex. Unless you count that foot interaction with Larys that is.

We have however, previously seen Fabien Frankel as Criston Cole, on screen in an intimate moment, during his sex scene with the young Rhaenyra (played by Milly Alcock). And he also revealed the work the pair did with an intimacy coordinator before shooting the scene.

“It was one of the first things I was very keen to talk about,” Frankel said in an interview on Entertainment Weekly’s ‘West of Westeros’ podcast. “The big thing for me was about it not feeling like another gratuitous, sweat-glistening-off-their-back sex scene, ’cause it’s just not like that. Anyone who’s ever had sex will tell you sex ain’t that beautiful. It isn’t some picturesque, amazing thing. It’s awkward, especially when you are young.”

HBO / Sky

The actor also revealed they had many discussions about how to take the armour off as Fabien pointed out, it’s not the sort of thing that would come off quickly.

“I remember just saying to them, ‘There’s no way this armour comes off without the help,'” he explained. “Knights would have squires, and squires would take off their armour. For even a world-quality squire, you’ve got 10 minutes to get the armour off. Let’s say five, maybe at best. There’s no way Rhaneyra and Cole are gonna take that armour off in 10 seconds.”

Given how episode one of season two ended, we hope he can put it back on quicker this time around.