House of the Dragon’s Olivia Cooke Opens Up About Panic Attacks, Insecurity, and Stepping Back from Social Media

Olivia Cooke, known to many fans as Queen Alicent Hightower in House of the Dragon, has shared a deeply personal look at her long-running mental health struggles, revealing that she once suffered a breakdown marked by up to three panic attacks a day. Speaking in a recent interview, the 32-year-old actress reflected on how those challenges, and the pressures of working on screen, have shaped the way she navigates both her career and her sense of self.​

Quick read:

• Cooke says she endured daily panic attacks and years of intrusive thoughts in her early twenties.​

• She describes feeling deeply insecure during intimate scenes amid industry body pressures and trends like Ozempic.​

• Deleting Instagram while filming in Budapest helped her step back from constant body comparison and regain some mental space.

“Panic attacks every day” and years of intrusive thoughts

Olivia Cooke traced her most difficult period back to her early twenties, shortly after she moved to the U.S. to push her career forward. She described enduring “panic attacks every day for three weeks,” followed by a prolonged struggle with obsessive-compulsive disorder and intrusive thoughts in an interview with The Times. That lasted for around three years—something she called a “torture from within” that she would not wish on anyone.

Much of this, she explained, happened while she was suffering in silence, trying to keep working as her internal world became increasingly overwhelming.​

Body image, intimacy on screen, and stepping away from Instagram

On top of anxiety and OCD, Cooke also spoke candidly about how body image pressure intersects with her work. She noted that seeing “endlessly shrinking bodies” in the industry and wider culture has made it incredibly hard not to feel insecure during intimate scenes, especially in the age of the Ozempic trend.

While filming the Prime Video series The Girlfriend, in which she plays Cherry—a glamorous, morally ruthless social climber who frequently uses seduction and nudity to manipulate a wealthy heir—Cooke admitted it was “incredibly challenging” not to feel exposed when only “you, your partner, and your doctor” normally see you that way.​

One day, she even skipped breakfast expecting an early shoot, only to end up feeling faint on set—an experience that pushed her to reassess how she treated her body under pressure. As part of reclaiming a healthier mindset, Cooke deleted her Instagram account while filming Brides in Budapest, calling the decision liberating and saying that not being bombarded with images of other people’s bodies brought a sense of relief.

She added that she has never scrutinized her own appearance as much as she does now and suggested that this constant pressure on women to remain thin feels like yet another tool used to heighten anxiety about existing in a larger body.

Quick read: Olivia Cooke Cast as Lead in Neon’s Gothic Horror Film ‘Brides’