Game of Thrones star Gemma Whelan (Yara) improvised her kiss with Ellaria Sand

Yara Greyjoy (Gemma Whelan) never had a love interest per se on Game of Thrones, but she did get a couple of memorable kisses, one with a Volantene prostitute in the sixth season…

…and one with Ellaria Sand in the seventh:

On a show where sexual norms could be pretty repressive, Yara was refreshingly open about her sexuality, happily admitting to Ellaria that she could have a girl and boy in every port. Whelan herself is heterosexual and married to comedian Gerry Howell, with whom she has a two-year-old daughter. But as she recently told GayStarNews, she’s happy to associated with sexually fluid characters like Yara. “Every single thing I do, there’s a lesbian touch to it. Long may I continue to be typecast, if that’s the way it goes.”

And indeed, Yara isn’t the only role of Whelan’s that plays with sexuality. She’s currently appearing in the Shakespearean comedy The Upstart Crow in London’s West End. Her character, Kate, aspires to be an actor, despite the laws of Shakespeare’s time prohibiting women from performing on stage. Kate challenges gender roles while falling in love and sharing a same-sex kiss. Then there’s her part in HBO’s Gentlemen Jack, an excellent drama about real-life trailblazer Anne Lister, who lived all but openly as a lesbian despite that being very unusual in 19th century England. In that series, Whelan plays Anne’s straight sister, but the association remains.

Whelan also shared that Yara’s kiss with Ellaria Sand in “Stormborn” was improvised. “It wasn’t directed that we would kiss,” she said. “It just seemed like something we should do. We led it, very much so. It was meant to be a suggestion [of flirting] and then it became more sexual than we expected because it seemed right.”

This year, you can catch Whelan in a new version of Emma on the big screen, or on TV in the British crime drama White House Farm.

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