Philosophy, Performance & Purpose: All In A Chat With Abigail Thorn
Abigail Thorn has an intriguing out-of-office autoreply set up. It reads, “I am filming a very physically demanding role in a hard-to-reach location. I will be slow to respond to emails.” It tells me two things – 1. She’s in the middle of doing something seriously cool. 2. I have to know what she’s up to.
On the 15th floor of the Treehouse Hotel in Marylebone, we find a colourful but quiet corner to chat. She’s dressed in a white t-shirt given to her by model/content creator Vivian Wilson that reads “Existing shouldn’t be revolutionary”, paired with a black jacket and ripped blue jeans. She looks effortlessly cool.
I aim for Kristen Stewart if she were captain of a women’s rowing team.
“I aim for Kristen Stewart if she were captain of a women’s rowing team”, she tells me later, when I ask her about her fashion inspiration. So it makes sense that she looks like she could jump straight into an action movie. Because, well, turns out, she’s been living and breathing one lately.
Where you know her from
Thorn is easily one of the UK’s most exciting rising stars. She played the role of Ensign Eurus in the Star Wars television series The Acolyte that came out in June last year, and she was Sharako Lohar in House of the Dragon, a role that Thorn holds close to her heart.
They told me they wanted a woman who’s over six foot who can kick ass.
Talking about her audition process, she says, “They told me they wanted a woman who’s over six foot who can kick ass. I play a pansexual cannibal pirate queen – that is as good a role as you can get. She doesn’t take shit from anybody, and underneath all of that, is this ocean of pain and trauma.”
Philosophy for free
Thorn began her acting journey with Shakespeare, acting in plays like The Tempest. “I wanted to go to drama school, but my parents said to go and get a degree first, so I did. I just did as much acting as I could on the side,” she said. That philosophy degree turned out to be a great decision, too. Thorn is also the creator of Philosophy Tube, a YouTube channel where she essentially “gives out her degree for free,” an idea she had after university tuition fees in England were tripled in 2012. The channel recently celebrated its 12th anniversary, and currently has a whopping 1.65M subscribers and an audience from around the world.
This is also the platform where Thorn publicly came out as trans in a video titled “Identity: A Trans Coming Out Story”, where she says, “I look inside myself and ask: do I feel like a man or a woman? And the answer is… I feel happy”.
Thorn says that coming out as trans has impacted her acting career less than things like interest rates. “Most of the time, people don’t really care. The acting industry is on fire, but the degree to which macroeconomic and political factors completely beyond anyone’s control affect the industry is massive,” she says, referencing events like the recent LA curfews. “But there have been times when people have told me – we want to give you this role, but we can’t because of the way that you were born. So the way that all that other stuff gets in the way is the frustrating part. I’m just trying to create something artistic and transcendent in a material world.”
The acting industry is on fire, but the degree to which macroeconomic and political factors completely beyond anyone’s control affect the industry is massive
The advice she lives by
Thorn makes more than one animated reference to her drama school days, reserving a particularly resonant tone of voice for it. The best advice she has ever gotten is from one of her drama teachers, who said, “Confidence is bullshit used to sell self-help books. What you need is entitlement. Have you learned your lines? Done your character prep? Do you know what you’re doing? If yes, you are entitled to take up the audience’s time.”
Thorn explains that it wasn’t confidence that got her to audition for the Star Wars role or the House of the Dragon. It was knowing that she had done the prep, and she was entitled to try.
A dream role
“I’m filming a big action role,” she says. “I’m training with a stunt team 2 or 3 times a week. That’s also why I’m massive at the moment – I put on 10 kilos of muscle for this, which is difficult, because I have no testosterone anymore.” Thorn has been in the gym six times a week, taking boxing and sword fighting lessons, and she’s been loving every minute of it. “I’ve wanted to do action for ages. I can ride horses and shoot guns and all of that – and now I’m finally able to do it on camera.”
Thorn tells me that fight scenes are engineered so that the actor does as much of it as possible. So most of the action scenes will be her, although there are a few stunt doubles. She can’t share anything about the role or what she’s shooting for, but it’s evident that she’s having the time of her life doing it. “I love getting to explore a character through the way that she fights. It’s just a fantastic challenge as an actor.”
As for future roles she’d love to take on, like every other British actor, she’s also had Doctor Who on her mind (“I really liked the last season, I like that the show wears its heart on its sleeve.”) And a lot of Thorn’s fans have been saying for years that they want to see her in the Tardis – a time machine/spacecraft that famously whisks Doctor Who from one space in time to the other.
What’s next?
In between stunt rehearsals and filming, Thorn is busy writing. In the pipeline is a play that navigates Christianity and sex. There’s also a script for a sci-fi feature film in the works, about “women who kill billionaires”. The film centres on a woman’s journey to discover her “inner wild woman” to fight back against patriarchal capitalism. Plus, it’s a sci-fi.
I want to get better at acting because acting is fucking cool and important.
If you meet Thorn, you’ll know that she’s doing exactly what she was born to do. “When I act, I can use all of me – it’s not just about the brain. I can use my body, voice, spirit (whatever that is), heart…It’s total creativity. It challenges every part of you and pushes every single part of it to get better. And that’s what I care about. I want to get better at acting because acting is fucking cool and important.”
