Abigail Thorn, a transgender British actress, made a red-carpet statement as pirate Sharako Lohar and helped bring the brutal Battle of the Gullet to life in “House of the Dragon” Season 3—fueling buzz after weeks of physically punishing work.
The first thing you saw outside the venue in London on June 21 wasn’t just the scale of the “House of the Dragon” Season 3 premiere—it was the way Abigail Thorn owned the moment.
Thorn. a newcomer among the established stars including Olivia Cooke. Emma D’Arcy and Matt Smith. arrived in a Chris Habana one-sleeve gown that featured a sculpted metal chest plate. Then. as cameras rolled. the British actress—who is transgender—gave a heroic biceps flex. turning a red-carpet look into a message.
“I wanted to celebrate my favorite character, this strong action character. And it was a reflection of my role in the show,” Thorn, 33, said. “Women in the U.S. and U.K. are going through a lot right now, especially queer women. I wanted to be a signal of strength on the red carpet to show that we’re here and not afraid.”.
That push for visible strength lands directly in the story as well. The “House of the Dragon” Season 3 premiere airs at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT on HBO and streams on HBO Max. and Thorn’s character Sharako plays a central role in the long-awaited Battle of the Gullet—the massive naval clash that dominates the episode.
Sharako Lohar is positioned with swagger and a desire for revenge, and her arc also functions as a breakthrough showcase for Thorn, who has worked as a playwright and a YouTuber. Thorn came out as a transgender woman in a January 2021 video on her Philosophy Tube channel.
Thorn joined the “Game of Thrones” spinoff in the August 2024 Season 2 finale, when she appeared as pirate Sharako Lohar. The path to the part began with casting choices that were rooted in George R.R. Martin’s world: the role was drawn from a thinly sketched male character in “Fire & Blood. ” and it was rewritten as a gender-swapped opportunity.
In auditions, Thorn said she was told Sharako was “completely bonkers.”
“The first thing they told me in the auditions is that she’s completely bonkers,” Thorn recalled. “I was like, ‘That’s not who she is. Let me try.’ I did my own thing.”
Thorn said she listened in on another audition before offering her own interpretation.
On-screen, Sharako’s volatility is already visible in Season 2. The character appears in the Season 2 finale and agrees to Tyland Lannister’s request—Tyland Lannister is played by Jefferson Hall—to lend the Triarchy’s fleet to King Aegon II’s war effort. The fleet is led by Sharako’s longtime bitter rival, the Sea Snake, Lord Corlys Velaryon, played by Steve Toussaint.
Once the bargain is set, Sharako demands proof. After granting his request to aid his cause, she insists that Lannister prove his worth by wrestling her in a mud pit. Thorn described the scene as a messy, odd-buddy pairing that still stuck in the memory.
“I was up at 4 a.m. for makeup, and then Jefferson and I were rolling and wrestling in that mud all day,” Thorn said. “And then I had a lot of showers.”
For Season 3, Thorn said she was thrilled Sharako would sail with Lannister, and she leaned into the physical transformation required to sell a warrior at sea. Thorn said she put on more than 25 pounds of muscle for Sharako to show off aboard her flagship, the Bitchfist.
“We just have to imagine that there’s a gym in the hold of the Bitchfist,” Thorn said.
The character’s preparation went beyond weight gain. Thorn said she underwent sword training, knife training and boxing lessons for the marathon sea battle sequences.
When the show’s armorer laid out potential weapons and asked, “Which one do you fancy?,” Thorn said she answered with a simple plan: take them all.
“I told him that I wanted all of them. That’s why Sharako has like nine weapons on her, with two on her back,” Thorn said. “I wanted her to be festooned in knives. There’s even a tomahawk that she uses and a big sword.”
For Thorn, that level of armory wasn’t just flavor. It became part of how she imagined Sharako’s movement and threat in the battle.
The Battle of the Gullet itself is considered the deadliest naval battle in the history of Westeros. Two ships—Sharako’s Bitchfist and the Sea Snake’s vessel called The Queen Who Never Was—were built inside the same 2-million-gallon water tank at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden outside London.
Thorn said the setup made the fight feel dangerously real.
“The ships were on gimbals, so they really smashed into each other,” Thorn said. “It wasn’t fake movement like the deck of ‘Star Trek.’ You’re fighting and the boats are moving, water is shooting up the sides. It was all very real. Except for the sky and the dragons.”
Behind the spectacle was another kind of preparation: the blood work. Thorn said she required three distinct kinds of blood for the battle scenes—facial blood from slain enemies splattered across Sharako’s face each day. blood in her mouth made from syrup and food coloring. and a head wound enhanced with rubber dust to create a fire-singed look.
The physical workload was relentless. Thorn said the physical work aboard the real ship deck was spread across 45 days, and that it was challenging “in every way.”
“I’d be up at 4 a.m. six days a week, and I’d fight stunt performers all day until about 5 or 6,” Thorn said. “I’d go home and collapse in bed at 8, and then go do it all again. It was intense psychologically as well, because you are fighting for your life every day.”
Even before the audience reactions, the payoff showed up in the room. At the premiere screening, castmates congratulated Thorn. Among them were Emma D’Arcy and Abubakar Salim, who plays Sharako’s mortal foe Alyn of Hull, the Sea Snake’s bastard son.
“They both came up to me and said, ‘You stole every scene you were in,’” Thorn recalled. “To hear that from actors of their caliber, that was really wonderful.”
Taken together, Thorn’s red-carpet signal of strength and the brutal labor of building Sharako’s battlefield presence suggest how the character lands: not as a brief disruption, but as a warrior made to dominate space—on land in the mud pit, and at sea in Westeros’ deadliest clash.
Abigail Thorn Sharako Lohar House of the Dragon Season 3 premiere HBO Max Battle of the Gullet Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden transgender actress Chris Habana Sharako Bitchfist Corlys Velaryon Tyland Lannister