"She’s the Only Person Who’s Having Fun!" Abigail Thorn Makes History on House of the Dragon
The YouTuber and actor chats about her historic debut as the gender-bent admiral of the Triarchy.
Sharako Lohar came at the perfect time for Abigail Thorn. The transgender YouTuber had been trying to land a proper acting gig for years but quickly realized Hollywood wasn’t looking for someone who looked like her.
“I was in this real despair before I auditioned for House of the Dragon,” Thorn tells Inverse. “I didn’t transition at 13. I’m 6-foot-1. I’m big. I like working out. I got my start doing Shakespeare and sword fighting, not runway modeling, and that’s totally fine. But I was wondering what I was going to do.”
Thorn, who came out in 2021, found herself competing for roles against other trans femme actors like Hari Nef, Hunter Schafer, and Indya Moore. “All fantastic actors,” Thorn says, “but they’re all former runway models, and a lot of the roles are like sassy best friends.”
“I was in this real despair before I auditioned.”
She imagined a different kind of character for herself. Thorn was feminine, yes, but she wanted to show that she can be tough onscreen too. “I remember telling the producers [on a previous project] ‘I can ride; I can shoot; I can fight. Put me in.’ And they go, ‘No, no, she’s feminine; she’s passive.’”
Sharako is anything but that. The pirate admiral first appears in House of the Dragon’s Season 2 finale when Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall) visits the commanders of the Triarchy to win their support in breaking the blockade at the Gullet. They agree, but only if he gains the approval of Sharako Lohar. It takes mud wrestling, flirting, and a sea shanty, but Tyland manages to win her affection, at which point she turns around and asks him to impregnate her “wives.”
Sharako and Tyland mud wrestling in House of the Dragon Season 2 Episode 8.
Thorn beat out dozens of other actors, both cis and trans, for the role.
“[The producers] said, ‘We just want a woman who’s over 6 foot and who could kick ass, and we don’t care about cis or trans,’” Thorn recalls of her audition process. “They were thinking about that — they auditioned cisgender women too.”
The idea that a trans woman can play a role like Sharako without the story having to address it, where she can play femininity as varied as it is, is a huge step for the series and as trans representation in general.
“I actually said to Sara [Hess], the exec producer, at the wrap party, ‘Thank you for giving me this, because the idea that a trans woman can play a role where gender doesn’t fucking matter is important,’” Thorn says. “‘It’s not the very special House of the Dragon episode where the trans person comes in. The idea that we can do that has not yet occurred to anyone outside this wrap party. And when it does, it’s going to fucking blow their minds.’”
Inverse spoke to Thorn about the historic nature of Sharako’s debut, her undeniable chemistry with Tyland Lannister, and how Blackbeard inspired her costume design.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Abigail Thorn at the U.K. premiere for The Acolyte, in which she starred as a Brendok witch.
In the Season 2 finale, Sharako is referred to as “he,” but showrunner Ryan Condal refers to her as “she.” Will Sharako Lohar’s gender identity be addressed in the future?
She’s a badass lady. Maybe she’s cisgender, maybe she’s transgender. Who knows? But if it matters, you'll find out. And if it doesn’t matter, you won’t find out. But sometimes your boss doesn’t get your gender.
Sometimes a cis woman is so good at kicking ass, people think she must be some kind of guy, especially if she’s got wives. Sometimes a cisgender woman is really good at fighting and gets called “he.” We’ve just seen it happen a couple of days ago at the Olympics. Sometimes you’re so good at fighting that people call you a man.
“That’s real mud in our teeth. That day was a blast.”
What was filming the mud-wrestling scene like?
That was quite possibly the most fun day I’ve ever had on the set. It was a long day, and me and Jefferson were shattered by the end and filthy. It’s not fake mud. They dug a mud pit — they sifted it and made sure that there weren’t broken bottles in it — but it was real mud. That’s real mud in our teeth. That day was a blast.
There’s a certain energy between Sharako and Tyland — I remember when we were rehearsing the fight with the stunt team and I was talking to [director] Geeta [Patel] asking, “How much is Sharako enjoying this wrestling match? How horny is this?”
What I loved about this project was that they listened to me about the character. I even got to contribute a little bit to what I wanted to do with the costume too. They made me feel like part of the team and family, and it was such a wonderful environment. So getting to do the fight scene where there were specific moves and specific beats where I was saying “Oh, what if we tried this?” And that made it in. That was so wonderful. It’s like a dream come true for an actor.
What did you add to the costume?
I remember telling them, “I think she’s kind of like Blackbeard, who wore so many pistols and had fuses under his hat so he looked so intimidating [that] he didn’t have to fight. I feel like she’s a little bit like that.” And they said, “Well, we can’t give you guns. They don’t have guns, but we can get our armorer in here, and we can see about knives.”
And so the armorer came in with the knives and the swords and I was just like, “Just keep going. Just keep adding them. Just keep putting them on.” So she’s got this big steel sword. She’s got two knives in the back, the one in the boot, one in the arm, two here, and then the big one there. They told me quite early on, they said they wanted her to be something different, which was lucky for me.
Sharako’s costume is decked out in swords and daggers at Abigail Thorn’s suggestion.
Philosophically, what did you think of Season 2 of House of the Dragon?
Season 2 is all about women coming into our power. And that’s what makes Sharako such an interesting character for me. That’s certainly the way that I approached her, as a woman who is a leader in a man’s world, so much so that perhaps men even deny her gender.
I love the way that Sharako fits into that. Part of the joke about the scene where she’s introduced is that Tyland turns around and sees a woman, but expects the women that he’s met, who are very courtly like Alicent. There’s a bit of Tyland that’s a bit like, “Oh, a woman, I’ll be respectful to this person.” Then, in mud wrestling her, he’s kind of holding back. That’s what makes that moment with the backhand so great. There’s just so much fucking gender in that. Tyland backhands a woman, and we get this really girly “Ah!” from Sharako. That’s the moment where he does something quite violent against a woman and he’s really put out of his comfort zone.
“Maybe she’ll kill you or maybe she’ll have sex with you.”
She’s very dismissive of him, and her arc through the series is perhaps realizing “Actually maybe this guy’s cool, maybe this guy’s all right... and also maybe I want to fuck him. Yeah, I think I do actually.” At the banquet where I say, “You’ve proven your virility; I want you to fuck my wives,” we did a few takes of it, and in one of them, I just lent across and started unbuttoning Tyland’s tunic, but I quickly discovered that it doesn’t unbutton — it just unzips in the back. So we had to stop, and he just went, “I’m sorry it doesn’t unbutton further.”
Sharako and Tyland share an undeniable attraction in House of the Dragon.
What does Sharako bring to House of the Dragon?
I watched a few episodes of Season 1 before I went into the audition, but then I deliberately stopped. I said to myself, “I don’t want to give them something they’ve already seen because there’s going to be a lot of people who go into the audition and do very serious Game of Thrones acting.”
I decided to go in just like “Fuck it. This is what I think the character’s like; this is how she speaks to me. This is who she is.” They said they wanted her to be something different. She’s probably the only person in the whole Season 2 who's enjoying herself. Everyone else is just like, “Oh, God, the civil war, the children are dying.” She’s all, “Let’s fight in a mud pit, you crazy bastard. Let’s fight.”
She’s a chaos pirate. She’s maybe a cannibal, or is that a joke? She’s goofy. She’s having fun with it. But then underneath there’s this “I’m going to kill Corlys Velaryon.” And there’s that switch that she has to make, which was a difficult energy to capture. She could be anything at any moment. Maybe she’ll kill you, or maybe she’ll have sex with you. You don’t know. That was so much fun.
