Abigail Thorn Dives Deep Into Sharako Lohar’s Big House Of The Dragon Moment

Abigail Thorn was born to be an action star.

She may have started out making YouTube videos about philosophy in front of a bookcase, but her theatrical energy was always apparent. Her videos have evolved into lush, complex video essays, and she’s even written and starred in a play, The Prince, and a Nebula short film, Dracula’s Ex-Girlfriend.

Now, her acting career has really taken off. She previously appeared in The Acolyte as a member of the coven on Brendok, but in 2024 she got her breakout role: Sharako Lohar, the brash leader of the Triarchy in HBO’s House of the Dragon. Though the character was male in the books, Thorn’s version is a badass woman who leads with an iron fist and forms a tenuous alliance with Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall).

In Season 2, we finally see Sharako in action with The Battle of the Gullet, the massive, bloody naval battle that puts her face-to-face with her nemesis, Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint), aka the Sea Snake.

“Captain America just told me I was born to be an actual star.”

“The stunt team who taught us to fight, I can’t say enough nice things about those wonderful f*cking people. They had all doubled for superheroes in the past; I was taught to fight by Captain America, Deadpool, and Wonder Woman,” Thorn tells Inverse as she was preparing for the season’s London premiere. “There was this moment at the end of one day’s fight when it was Ben Wright, the assistant stunt director, who said to me, ‘F*cking hell, Abigail, you were born for this.’ And I was like, ‘Captain America just told me I was born to be an actual star.’”

Unfortunately, in learning she was born for this, Sharako had to die. The character dies in the books during the Battle of the Gullet, and the show’s version is no different. But just how Thorn approached her role, with the methodical, contemplative compassion she’s now known for, makes Sharako’s end only the beginning of her superstardom.

Inverse spoke to Thorn about filming that epic fight, the kiss left on the cutting room floor, and the surprising Star Trek movie that inspired her performance.

This conversation has been edited for brevity and/or clarity.

When we spoke about Season 2, you mentioned wanting to add a bunch of knives to your costume. What was it like to actually use said knives?

Filming this episode is the most fun I've ever had in my life. It was really nice that the stunt team trusted me to deliver on my claims. They were just like, “Yeah, as you go through the battle, you're going to use up your knives one by one until there's only one left.”

And that is also the one that you first see [me] using to eat the crab. That was my decision. I was like, “Let me just show the audience this knife and show them where it is.” And that's the one that finishes me off.

They told me that just before I'm about to start fighting Steve, she flips the knife around. That was a moment the character really clicked for me because you would only hold it with the point there if you were really getting in close, which tells me she wants to be right up in Corlys’ face when he dies. It told me so much about her relationship with intimacy and with violence, and how for her, those are kind of the same thing.

I remember back when we did Season 2, one of the first things that I really discovered about her was that I think she stinks. I think she doesn't wash, because I don't think she'll want anyone to come near her. I don't think she wants anyone to touch her at all. I mean, her ship, which she designed herself, is called The Bitchfist, and it's covered in spikes, just like she is.

In Season 2, she doesn’t say “I want you to f*ck me.” She says, “I want you to f*ck my wives.” I think she just has a thing about physical touch. So the fact that the moment she's saving intimacy for is with this man she wants to murder. Oh, it just tells me so much.

“We called that the Captain Ahab moment.”

What is going through Sharako’s head when she chooses to pursue the Sea Snake?

A big part of my process for this was reading Moby Dick, the novel, and watching every adaptation of it I could find. She's Captain Ahab, and Corlys is her white whale. She's consumed by this mission of vengeance against him. She's willing to throw away the lives of her own crew and ultimately her own life in order to get him. And [director] Loni [Peristere] and I even spoke about this on set, that moment where I do that final desperate attack at Steve, it’s an overextension. She knows that either she kills him with this or she's dead. But in that moment, she throws her own life away. We called that the Captain Ahab moment. That is “from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.”

I was also really inspired by Ricardo Montalban's performance in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, which is an adaptation of Moby Dick. The novel is in several shots. I mean, Khan even quotes Moby Dick at the end of that. So they have this Khan and Kirk thing going on between Sharako and Corlys.

For the fighting, the nice thing about the fights is that the stunt team will teach you the moves and then as the actor, you get to decide how you're going to execute those moves. A lot of female action roles use the Sailor Moon gymnastics, like the high kick or the Xena Warrior Princess thing, which I love, but I wanted to go in a different direction.

This woman is called The Bitchfist. She stinks. She's covered in knives. She's 6-foot-1 and jacked. She doesn't fight with gymnastics. So I watched a lot of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine because he has this explosive energy to him, but at the same time, a kind of fluidity to it. And so I went through my fights trying to give it that kind of energy.

What was the fan reaction to your appearance in Season 2 like? It was quite the moment.

It was amazing. I was astonished and flattered and happy, and it's a real treat because in the books, Sharako is a minor character. He doesn't have a whole lot going on. So it was really nice as an actor to step into this role and to invent her and to make her into what I wanted and what the showrunners wanted as well.

People loved her, thought she was funny. She's the only person in Season 2 who has fun, and she's still having a little bit of fun this season. She's not fun anymore. It's really cool to take this character's like, “Oh, yeah, the pirate lady.” And then like, “Oh, God, she's really f*cked up, isn't she?” I mean, she f*cking throws Tyland off the ship.

I couldn't believe it when I read the script, “Call me Lohar Dragonslayer.” I was like, “That f*cking rocks.” I think in the original script, she grabs him and she kisses him when that happens. And we did a few takes of that, and we didn't end up using that because I did an alternate take where I just pick him up and then throw him aside, that fits more with her theme of like “I don't give a sh*t about anything. Get me Moby Dick.”

So now that your character is no more, that doesn't mean that she can't return. And I have a path. Corlys Velaryon is getting his own animated spinoff, which is a prequel. So we could see whatever started this beef. Would you return to voice that show?

Anytime. Anytime. I mean, not only because I love the character, but also, everyone I've worked with on this show has been so lovely and accommodating and kind. Everyone from the drivers up to [showrunner] Ryan [Condal] himself and everyone at HBO that I've spoken to. And I think it does come from the top down.

I would be happy to return to work with them either on this, in this universe or just with these people anytime in anything. I can't say enough good things about them. [Episode director] Loni [Peristere] is a really good leader. You've got to be an artistic visionary as a director. You've got to have the artistic bit of the brain, but you also have to be able to lead and manage people. And he's so good at that. Also, he made me look great in this episode. And he was telling me, “We want this to be your big episode, Abi, because we know you're not coming back, and we love you.”

Now that you can sit back and watch the other episodes as a fan, is there anything in the season you're excited about?

I want to see [Corlys] get f*cked up. I know a little bit about what happens to him this season, but I'm like, yeah, it's really great. I can hardly watch the show with my friends because I'm so loud and I cackle. When I watched the screener on my own and [Jace] was like, “Oh, Mom, you've got to let me go and fight them.” I was like, “Yes, come and find me. Oh, boy. Yeah, I'm going to f*ck you up.”

I want to see [Corlys] get f*cked up because I burned his f*cking house down. That's the final insult.

Do you think she has any regrets as she dies?

I think she does actually. And you know what, that was one of my favorite moments. In the script, it's just two lines at the end. It's like they fight, it's brutal, and she dies. And I got to decide such a treat as an actor. I got to decide the emotional arc of that fight for her. There's the moment she thinks she's winning. I got to decide the moment she realizes she's going to lose and how she feels about that. And I decided that I was going to play it, that in the end, she's just a woman who's scared, and she realizes what the cost of war has been.

That's the theme of her episode. And she realizes what she's left behind on shore, who she's not going to see again. What she's given up for this: weeks at sea, she stinks, her teeth are rotten, she's having a horrible time. I decided to play it in those final moments as she's a woman who is afraid to die.

In that final scene, she's an unarmed woman being strangled by a much larger man, and it is upsetting to watch, and I wanted it to be that way. This wonderful moment of serendipity occurred when Alyn lifted me out of the water for the final bit in that beautiful soft light reflecting off the water, and all the blood and grime had washed off my face.

And so in that final moment, she's just a woman being murdered, even though we've seen her do all that f*cked-up sh*t. It's a moment of, like, “fight ye not monsters or you will become one.”

“I’m a 6-foot-1 woman who can fight.”

We shot my stuff more or less in chronological order, actually. My death was my final shot, my martini, as we say. Loni gathered everyone around, and he said some very nice things, which I think the BTS team captured. And then he thanked me for my hard work. I was crying. It was beautiful.

It was hard to say goodbye to the character, especially because I felt such a connection to her. When I finish playing a character, I have little rituals that I do to say goodbye to them, and I usually write a goodbye letter to them, and I know her real name. We decided back in Season 2, when we were planning her backstory, that Sharako was a kind of nom de guerre, that Lohar is a surname, but Sharako is a war name.

I know her real name, and I wrote a letter to her. And the nice thing about being an actor is that in the show, she dies, but in my head, I can imagine where she wakes up and what paradise is for her. What is her afterlife like? Where does she go? I know where she's gone.

What does paradise look like for her?

I imagined her going somewhere away from the sea, somewhere cold, not somewhere hot and sweaty, but somewhere away from the sea, a cabin in the mountains in the snow where she could be alone. And I imagined her having a big husky dog.

A place where she can just think and be alone, chop her wood, eat food — not fish and not crabs — and just be by herself for a while with a big roaring fire in the warm and in the comfort for a bit.

You've done Star Wars; you've done House of the Dragon. What else is on your wish list? What are you manifesting?

I've got a feature in development that we're taking out to financing, but if you're talking about my wish list... I would love to do some superhero stuff. I think that'd be a lot of fun.

I've seen lots of superhero films, but I went to see Superman, and I was like, “This is so good. I want to buy some comics.” And I picked up Absolute Wonder Woman more or less at random. Loved it. I think that what Kelly Thompson and Hayden Sherman have done with the character and with the way she looks is astonishing. I would love to do some superhero stuff, whether it's that or something else. I've got all this muscle now. I'm a 6-foot-1 woman who can fight.

Apart from that, there's something else that I taped for recently that I probably shouldn't say, but I'm trying to manifest it. I was really proud that we taped for this because it's a big swing. And I bumped into someone recently who has worked on this show and said “Yeah, good luck,” but there's a big TV show that's currently looking for its new lead that I'd love to do. A big British TV show.

“There's a big TV show that's currently looking for its new lead that I'd love to do. A big British TV show.”

Oh... oh! You taped for that?

I'd love to be in something that my little nieces can watch me in. I have a take on the character that I would like to bring to it. So if that fits with their vision... I don't know what their vision is going to be. I bumped into somebody who was on that show fairly recently and probably will be bumping into someone who was on it tonight as well. That would be nice.

You found your niche, I think.

A few years ago, I was thinking, “Do I need to get modeling lessons? Do I need to be in that kind of Hunter Schafer, Indya Moore zone?” What they do is incredible. And then when this came along, I was like, “Well, I can't out-runway-walk Hunter.” But equally, I can swing onto the deck of a pirate ship, which, like, OK, I’m not going to be seen in Paris Fashion Week anytime soon, but you could see me cut a guy's head in half and shoot a dragon out of the sky. That's pretty cool.

House of the Dragon Season 3 is now streaming on HBO Max.