Thirteen years ago, Abigail Thorn set up a camera, spoke in front of a blank wall, and posted the resulting video on YouTube. The title: ‘I Think, Therefore I Am’ – a four-and-a-half-minute breakdown pondering the meaning of Descartes’s saying, and the certainty of experience.
Fast forward to today, and Abigail has amassed 1.6million followers on her Philosophy Tube page thanks to her digestible and entertaining philosophical discussions. She’s also become a fleet-leading warrior in House of the Dragon, and a Force-yielding coven member in the Star Wars series, The Acolyte.
As an actress, House of the Dragon, in particular, has seen her gain a new following, with the world seeing Abigail in a light away from their subscription feeds. Introduced towards the tail-end of season two, Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall) meets Sharako Lohar – a Triarchy fleet leader who dominates conversation, is forward in sexual appetite and fearless at war.
By the end of the finale, she’d gone viral in a whole new way, with Sharako’s blunt proposal for Tyland to sleep with her wives providing comedic levity in a series dominated by battle and bloodshed and shaping her to be a new fan favourite.
Speaking exclusively toMetro, Abigail explains: ‘I was really pleasantly surprised by the reception that Sharako got. It’s so nice. House of the Dragon fans are wonderful, lovely people, and I knew that I would only have a short time with Sharako in terms of the whole arc of the show. So I really thought, “Okay, I’m going to swing for the fences, and I’m going to do my best with this”.
‘It was really, really pleasant to do it, because she is a kind of breath of fresh air. She’s very, very different than all the other characters on the show, and I loved playing her so much.
‘It’s always nice as an actor to get that. I remember the first time someone asked me to sign their copy of Fire and Blood, and they said, “Could you write the line?” I was like, “Yes! I want you to f**k my wives!”’, she laughs.
‘Sometimes people come up to me, and they’re like, “Have I seen you on something?” I’m like, “Oh, you know, House of the Dragon.” And they’re like, “I love that show, who are you in that?” Because I look a little bit different. Sometimes I lean in and just say, “I want you to f**k my wives,” and hope that they recognise it!’
‘Playing an action star is an absolute dream come true.’
While Abigail can’t currently confirm whether she’s back for House Of The Dragon season three – despite her character being seen heading off on a ship into battle at the end of season two – she teased spending the summer of last year working on a ‘Big Unnamed Action Project’ which required working with a stunt team for months. It’s left her in ‘Wonder Woman shape’, proudly flexing her arms to show off the progress she’s made.
‘I’m going to keep this muscle, because those are the kind of roles I want to play, and I hope that when this project comes out, there’ll be actiony roles in it for me,’ she notes.
‘I mean, you could think like Sigourney Weaver in Aliens, Linda Hamilton in Terminator. There’s not that many other roles like this for women, and so it’s really, really exciting to get to play a kind of female action star. It’s an absolute dream come true.’
In the meantime, however, her next project comes in stark contrast to the hundred-strong crew that comes with House of the Dragon – a two-person play about isolation, loneliness, and finding a way to be seen.
Oddly, Blink – which arrives at the King’s Head Theatre in London on 19th February – is almost a return to her roots.
While Philosophy Tube remains a mainstay of Abigail’s work, the production value has increased, now with stylist and make-up team Brian Conway and Nicki Buglewicz giving each ethical and philosophical conundrum she dissects added flair.
‘There’s not that many other roles like this for women.’
Her initial videos from 2013 – when YouTube was only just beginning to rise in any kind of prominence – started simpler, showing Abigail in front of a bookshelf alone, free of bells and whistles, talking directly to a camera, in the hopes of connecting with viewers.
Blink sees Abigail play Sophie, a young woman living alone in a flat in Leytonstone who, after the death of her father, finds companionship with her neighbour, Jonah (Joe Pitts), via the use of a baby monitor.
‘Part of what drew me to Blink is Sophie is very, very different from Sharako, and so I really wanted to challenge myself,’ she notes. ‘Sharako is someone who definitely jumps in with both feet and is ready to fight, and Sophie, bless her, is not a fighter. She’s wounded and sad, and she does nothing to sort of hide that, really.
‘There’s a lot in the play about Sophie in that she’s not really seen – she’s almost invisible,’ she adds. ‘It’s a little incongruous for me to be that girl – I’m six foot one, I don’t tend to be a woman who goes unnoticed. I think that’s going to be really interesting to play with.
‘It’s easier to talk to a camera than with a human being.’
‘We experience what that’s like, to experience her disbelief of vanishing, and what grief does to her and how grief distorts her image of herself. I’m looking forward to finding the moments where she does feel seen and how she comes to take control of that.’
Blink was created by Phil Porter in 2009 – at a point where the digital era at large was not the juggernaut it is now and phone cameras were barely worth it. So his tale of finding connection, even romance, through a screen while feeling alone, now feels almost prophetic.
‘It’s surprisingly prescient in a lot of ways, because even terms like parasocial relationship, which now would be kind of known to most people in the creative space, at the time, was not really spoken about,’ Abigail says.
‘Sophie describes to the audience the video games she’s been playing, and this is a play that predates Twitch. The idea that watching somebody play a video game and explaining it to you might someday become a dominant form of entertainment, way more so than theatre, I find really interesting. I hope the audience will be like, “Oh, wow. This is really unusual.”
‘Sometimes I see people watch House of the Dragon on their phones on the tube and I think, “[House of the Dragon director] Geeta [Patel] put so much work into that shot, and you’re watching it on a tiny screen. I wish you could just step back and see something on a big screen.” So the play feels like something that was written this year.’
Abigail hopes the play, directed by Simon Paris, will bring an authentic portrayal of online culture to the stage like never before, with elements of Blink being updated to give it a more modern twist.
‘There’s been a lot of plays, certainly over the last few decades, that have attempted to put the internet on stage, and many of them don’t quite work,’ she outlines. ‘They try to create a physical architecture on a stage that represents the physical architecture of the Internet, rather than the relationships and the emotional aspects of digital relationships.
‘I think that is what Blink does. I think Blink puts the internet on stage in a fantastic way, without really meaning to, and without trying to. So I think that’s what makes it a kind of fascinating, fascinating piece.
‘It’s easier to talk to a camera than with a human being, and that’s exactly what Sophie experiences,’ she adds. ‘It’s easier for her to live her entire life if she knows there’s somebody watching, she so desperately wants to be seen.’
Blink runs at King’s Head Theatre, London from 19th February to 22nd March. Tickets are available here. House of the Dragon returns later this year on Sky and NOW.
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