Olivia Cooke 'intimidated' by Steven Spielberg
Olivia Cooke was "intimidated" by the "genius" of Steven Spielberg when she worked on Ready Player One.
Olivia Cooke was "intimidated" by the "genius" of Steven Spielberg.
The 32-year-old actress played Samantha Cooke / Art3mis in the director's 2018 sci-fi action movie Ready Player One and she was fascinated by the speed in which he worked and his ability to focus on multiple parts of the film at the same time.
Asked the best thing about working with the legendary filmmaker, she told the Telegraph: "Watching how his mind worked. He’s a genius. He would be in post-production on the film he’d just finished, with an editing suite set up to the side of the set, so between set-ups he’d go and do some editing, then come back and direct us.
"With Ready Player One, it was almost like he was directing two films at once because there was the simulation world and the real world. He’d be making up new sequences on the spot for us to improvise in motion-capture suits, while also working out how they would cut with real-life reactions we’d already shot.
"I thought, I don’t understand how you do this. He was intimidating because he’s such a genius, but he was also so lovely."
The House of the Dragon star recalled a period in which she repeatedly went up against one particular actress for various projects and eventually found it funny the ways in which her screen rival would try to "psych [her] out".
She said: "When I was about 18, 19 or 20, I used to audition in Los Angeles a lot, and there was always this same actress in before me. I won’t name her, but she used to make it her mission to psych me out.
"She’d be looking at me, then doing yoga and stretches on the floor, then performatively reading her lines.
"One time she came out of the audition, and to be fair, she did get the role, but the walls were really thin, so I’d heard the whole thing. She came out, looked at me, and then wiped away a tear. I was like, 'For f***’s sake.' It was so over the top.
"I would see her constantly. After a while I almost became excited to see what she’d do next."
Olivia finds the "celebrity" elements of her work very difficult to deal with and would rather focus on just her acting.
She said: "The scrutiny is hard, especially the scrutiny on women – on our bodies, ageing, sex appeal. I’m just trying to tell a story and make a good film that people hopefully enjoy, but then there’s this gaze afterwards, when you have to do so much press.
"The celebrity side of the industry has become much more public, and I find that difficult. I’m always asking my publicist: what is the least press I can do?
"There’s more pressure now on the celebrity aspect of being an actor, and that can inform whether people want to hire you. I don’t want to subscribe to that at all."
