“Sexually forward with both women and men”: “House of the Dragon” star on her bold seafaring leader

A scene of muddy hand-to-hand combat is arguably the highlight of this season’s finale of “House of the Dragon.” It’s also an entertaining introduction to the leader of the Triarchy — pirate Sharako Lohar (Abigail Thorn).

In the episode directed by Geeta Vasant Patel, the brash character ushers the show in a new direction as the Targaryen civil war deepens, joining a long line of strong women in “House of the Dragon” like Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and Alicent (Olivia Cooke) who push against the confines of a patriarchal world’s rules. Therefore, we see Sharako challenge Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall,) telling him, “I will not sail with a man who cannot best me.”

Sharako and Tyland are practically swimming in a wet, slimy mud pit, trying to land as many physical blows on one another as possible. It’s a fun and engaging scene where audiences are left questioning Sharako’s sanity and sense of humor. Thorn describes Sharako as a “woman in a man’s world, who is not afraid to jump in” especially in her beatdown of Tyland, which Thorn confirms took place in real mud: “It wasn’t chocolate syrup. It tasted real . . . I still had filth under my toenails for weeks.”

In Thorn’s interview with Salon, she establishes that Sharako, as the leader of the Triarchy and future important puzzle to the Targaryen war, lives her life misunderstood by the men around her. “But I also think she doesn’t particularly care that they don’t get her deal,” she says.

Though Sharako is Thorn’s breakout television role, it isn’t her first time playing a character that challenges gender roles and power. The award-winning play she penned, “The Prince,” is roughly inspired by Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” and characters from William Shakespeare’s “Henry IV, Part 1” but with a modern lens that focuses on queerness and gender identity. In “The Prince,” Thorn plays Hotspur, an uber-masculine knight who has not yet realized she is transgender. She also leads her English army to victory against the Scottish. Thorn describes in Salon’s interview that the play helped her with her part as Sharako because as Hotspur she was “running around doing a lot of sword fighting and action stuff.” But also, Thorn explains there are similarities in her role in “The Prince” and “House of the Dragon” because “There was a bit of gender shenanigans going on there.”

The actress, who is a popular philosophy-focused YouTuber with 1.5 million subscribers, also shares what books she would recommend her “completely bonkers” character. 

The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

I enjoyed Sharako Lohar so much. How did you get cast to play this pirate leader, and what were your first impressions of them?

So there were three rounds of auditions for Sharako. In the first round, it was a fake script, and we didn’t know it was “House of the Dragon.” I was told we’re pretty sure this is what it is, but we’re not sure. And I was initially told really small role — she’s got like two lines. I was like, OK, no problem. And then they said, “Oh, there’s going to be a recall, and Ryan’s [Condal] going to be there, Sara [Hess is] going to be there, Geeta’s gonna be there. Jefferson’s gonna be there and head of casting.” And I thought, “Oh, this isn’t a small role. This is one of those roles where they tell you it’s small in the first round, and then you get in and you find out it’s not.”

So I walked into the room and I met Ryan and Sara and shook everyone’s hand. And Ryan was just like, it’s Sharako Lohar. Right OK, leader of the Triarchy. So did the second round then got the call. I did the third round again with Geeta. I think my performance in “The Prince,” which was my play that I did for Nebula the year before, helped a little bit because in that I played Hotspur, running around doing a lot of sword fighting and action stuff. There was a bit of gender shenanigans going on there, so I think that that probably helped a little bit. But that was how I got it.

What were your first impressions of Sharako? 

The scene I auditioned with was the one where she says, have you ever eaten human flesh? So my first impression was of a character who has a sense of humor and a sense of theatricality about her. And what I wanted to do was go, OK, like, I didn’t want to walk in there and just play silly. Just play funny. If you’re playing a character who’s there to be fun, it’s got to come from a real, authentic place and so that was a really helpful first step. The only thing they told me on the character breakdown was she’s completely bonkers. From there, I had to find where does she where does her pain sit. What does she worry about? What’s she trying to get out of this guy? Out of messing with his head like this? Is she messing with him for the sake of it? What is she really trying to get here? That question formed the basis of the kind of character construction that we did over the over the weeks and months of rehearsals that have followed really.

I can’t ignore how the character is introduced when another pirate tells Tyland Lannister, “You have to pass HIS test.” How does Sharako identify? What role do you think that gender plays when it comes to leadership in House of the Dragon? 

She’s introduced with he/him pronouns by one particular person. I mean, gender is one of our themes in Season 2, in particular, women in a patriarchal world coming into our power. Rhaenyra’s arc throughout this series is realizing that she’s got to get stuck in. Basically, she’s going to have to go out there on her dragon with a sword and really kick a**. There’s that great moment where somebody she’s holding the sword, and somebody says, “Oh, it suits you.”

Sharako is a woman in a man’s world, who is not afraid to jump in, who’s not afraid to be a leader, and who we also see is quite sexually forward with both women and men, in a way that probably would not be expected. That would certainly shock the leaders of court. I think at least in Westeros and the Triarchy leaders, as far as we see, are all men. So Sharako sits in this space where she’s a woman who I think the men around her don’t really get her deal, but I also think she doesn’t particularly care that they don’t get her deal. I think she cares that they do what she says because she’s got her own objectives, especially when it comes to this war, especially with regards to Corlys (Steve Toussaint). I think she cares about that first and foremost. As long as somebody can do what they’re told at the time that they’re told to do it, she doesn’t particularly care whether she’s referred to by this or that.

Jefferson Hall as Tyland Lannister in “House of the Dragon” (HBO)How fun and/or challenging was that mud wrestling scene with Jefferson Hall? How long did it take to shoot and how long did it take to get clean after?

So the whole thing was shot in a day, but preceding that were many days of rehearsals with the stunt team and with Jefferson on crash maps. So it was one very long day. I think I was up at 4 a.m. to shoot that one. In terms of getting clean afterwards, God, that shower was lovely. I mean, that was really beautiful. Well, two showers, one sort of quick one in the in the trailer and then a more thorough one when I got home. But I still had filth under my toenails for weeks.

And I’m assuming it was real mud, right?

Oh yeah! It was real mud! They filtered it so it didn’t have bits of broken glass or anything, but no, it wasn’t chocolate syrup. It tasted real, yeah. I think they took all the mouse droppings and everything out of it so we weren’t gonna get sick. It was a long day. It was great, great fun. It was exhausting, but I was grateful that I’d done a lot of physical training to get in shape before then because also I knew that on a day like that, you’re up against the clock to get what you need. And I wanted to give Geeta everything she needed and to be able to go for as long as she needed to get the shot. So we’re working right up to the limits of time on that day. And towards the end, we just had this amazing energy between us, me and Jefferson, just going again, again and again, and embellishing the moves. It was beautiful to see it all come together in the end.

Why is Tyland proving himself loyal through a physical challenge important to Sharako?

Because Tyland initially comes across as this very clean, soft-handed diplomat. And we talked a little bit about Sharako’s perception of the people of Westeros and this two-faced doctrine, right? On the one hand, you’ve got these people who are a bit like Tyland, who are very sort of soft and friendly and, oh, let’s form an alliance. And then the other face of it has teeth and breeds fire, right? So it’s all very like, nicey-nicey. And then, you know, the dragon strike with fire, right? And so we have this moment when she comes in and she’s, “Alright, which one are you? What sort of man are you? Type one, type two. Like, are you either nicey-nicey, or are you going to eat my men?”

And I think we talked a lot about what happens as they leave the tent when they meet, as they walk along, what they talk about. And I think she figures this guy’s type one. He’s the sort of clean, nice, sweet guy. He’s not got any sort of fire in him. And he’s like keeps his hands clean, both literally and politically. And I think she has his desire to dirty him up. And it’s like, “Well, go on, let’s get doing then if you want to prove to me you can fight. You want to prove that you’ve got some mettle in you; let’s do it.”

Her arc throughout the episode, the arc I chose to give her, was figuring out Tyland’s not what she expected. But actually, the people of Westeros are not all what she thought. And she goes from really not liking Tyland to thinking, “OK, yeah, you’re alright.” I’ll give you a chance to then by the end of it, actually being quite taken with him, enough to see what after the banquet scene.

At the feast, Lohar asks Tyland to be the father of their kids. But the caveat is he has to have sex with her wives . . . 

Abigail Thorn as Sharako Lohar and Jefferson Hall as Tyland Lannister in “House of the Dragon” (HBO)Well, I think Sharako’s going to be involved in that! I think the implications she’s involved with me and my wife, whether that, whether the having children is literal, or whether it’s just like, I’d love to see you try, is a nice thing too, right?  One thing you didn’t see is that was one take we did where I really upped the seduction thing. And as I leaned over, when I was talking to Jeff, I was unbuttoning his tunic, and then realized only the top three unbuttoned and it was actually done with a zip on the back. And he’s like, “It’s actually a zip.” And I was like, “Oh, darn.”

What sort of conversations or thoughts did you have about this nontraditional type of relationship?

You’re asking me about the people on TikTok who were shipping them. I’m down with that. I wanted to play it that Sharako is actually very taken with Tyland, and I’m just thinking in that banquet scene, I’m like, I’m gonna rock this guy’s world because it’s fun. Jefferson brings the comedy so wonderfully, of this fish out of water. She just wants to keep putting him out of water because he’s just so cute when he squirms. We talked a lot in the rehearsals about Sharako’s backstory and so on. Geeta and I talked about there might be some among the wives who are sort of special, who are a real inner circle. I was trying to picture, in my head, between the feast scene and obviously them on the ships — what happens? Who does she say bye to on the docks? Is there anyone in her life who’s really close to her? So yeah, I was thinking about all of that when we were doing it. I just love they’ve got this great chemistry. I’m just trying to go back to the small council and be like, This is my girlfriend, queen of the pirates. F**k you guys!

Sharako plays an important role in the future “House of the Dragon” battle, how crucial was getting her brashness and thirst for battle right as this is the audience’s introduction to her? What sorts of scenes would you like to tackle as Lohar?

Getting her brashness right was an interesting one because the comedy of the character is very present. But I did a lot of work trying to figure out where the seriousness sits. There’s this moment where she says, “The Sea Snake will rue the day we meet again.” So I did a lot of thinking about what happened the first time. What is the grudge that she has against Corlys in particular? We thought a lot about what it would mean to Sharako to have grown up either around or potentially in the war for the Stepstones that Corlys and Daemon (Matt Smith) have fought. What she might have seen where she got this impression of the other face of Westeros diplomacy, the one with the teeth, right? And also what kind of plan she has for going up against that because, of course, they’re probably going to be sailing into a fight with some dragons in it. So we better have some sort of plan. So I thought a lot about how she would feel about the prospect of going into a conflict like that, unlike the degree of her confidence and thirst for that. I did a lot of work behind the scenes figuring out the character’s personal stakes in this conflict and what she might really want out of it which perhaps we’ll see.

Your transition from your philosophy-focused YouTube to acting seems to be a seamless one! If you were to assign “House of the Dragon” or Sharako some philosophy reading and/or advice, what author or books would you recommend? And why?

Oh gosh! I’d be terrified to give Sharako any sort of advice, and I don’t think she’d appreciate it. I think Sharako would want to read a book about naval tactics before she’d read any philosophy. I think she has probably a quite dim, dim view of it. I think the show itself is quite philosophically resonant, especially this season. That theme of what it means to be a woman taking up power within what is a very patriarchal system, and also the stakes of you’ve got to save the world. You’re the generation that’s got to fix everything. I think that’s philosophically resonant enough. But no, I’d be terrified to give Sharako a book.