The actress noted that she auditioned to play Rey in the franchise, with the role ultimately going to Daisy Ridley.

House of the Dragon star Olivia Cooke recalls ‘really bad’ *Star Wars *audition: ‘I was s---’

The actress noted that she auditioned to play Rey in the franchise, with the role ultimately going to Daisy Ridley.

By Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2022. Her work has previously appeared on MTV News, Teen Vogue, and NME.

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June 22, 2026 3:11 p.m. ET

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Olivia Cooke; Daisy Ridley. Credit:

Neil Mockford/FilmMagic; Matt Winkelmeyer/WireImage

- Olivia Cooke is recalling her "bad" audition to play Rey in the *Star Wars* films.

- The *House of the Dragon *star claimed that she was "s---" during her audition, adding, "I was really bad."

- In the end, the role of Rey was portrayed onscreen by Daisy Ridley.

The Force was not with Olivia Cooke during her* **Star Wars** *audition.

During a recent visit to the *Happy Sad Confused** *podcast, the 32-year-old *House of the Dragon* star shot down speculation that she was in the running to play Kelly Marie Tran’s character Rose Tico in *The Last Jedi,* but revealed that she did try out for Rey in *The Force Awakens*.

“I did audition a few times for the other one, where Daisy Ridley got [the role of Rey]... The first one,” Cooke said, referring to 2015 sequel. “But, like, everyone and their dog auditioned for that.”

Daisy Ridley as Rey in 'The Force Awakens'. Lucasfilm

The experience went, well… not well. “I think I auditioned once in L.A. and then once with J.J. [Abrams],” she recalled, who directed both* The Force Awakens* and its 2019 sequel *The Rise of Skywalker*. “And I was s---. I was really bad.”

When host Josh Horowitz began to ask what happened, Cooke continued, “I was just bad. You know when you go into an audition, and you're just not bringing it, and you've let yourself down, you've let everyone down in the room?”

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The *Bates Motel *star noted that *Star Wars* found the Jedi that they were looking for in the end. “Daisy did such an amazing job,” she added. “I just wasn't that kind of actor at that time. It wasn't a fit.”

While Cooke was aware that she wasn’t going to be traveling to a galaxy far, far away after her ill-fated *Star Wars *audition, she explained that there have been moments within her career where she felt confident that she’d booked a role only to have it slip through her fingers in the end.

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“I’ve not had a really devastating one for a few years but, *Endless Love *with Alex Pettyfer,” she recalled. “It was a remake. I screen tested for that, and I wanted it so badly, and I was 19, and it was my first ever screen test and I was just like, ‘I’ve gotta get this.’”

The role ultimately went to actress Gabriella Wilde, which broke Cooke's heart at the time.

“My agent rung me up like in the middle of the night in the U.K. ‘cause they were in America and I wept into my childhood pillow in my childhood home,” Cooke said. “I was like my career is not gonna amount to anything because I didn't get *Endless Love*.”

Thankfully, that wasn’t the end of Cooke’s acting career. She has since gone on to star in films such as *Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Ready Player One, *and* Sound of Metal. *She is perhaps best known, however, for playing Queen Alicent Hightower on the* Game of Thrones *prequel, *House of the Dragon.*

Watch Cooke discuss he*r Star Wars* audition process in the clip above.

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Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Star”