“Everything happens for a reason” is a go-to cliche for people trying to rationalize something bad that’s just happened, to them or someone else. But sometimes, things do work out for the best. Take Gemma Whelan, probably best known for playing the indomitable Yara Greyjoy on Game of Thrones.
Speaking to Metro, Whelan recalled being really amped to get a part of the long-running British comedy Doc Martin, about a doctor with no bedside manner working in a sleepy seaside village. “It was Doc Martin for the receptionist , which my lovely friend Jess Ransom got, who’s brilliant,” Whelan remembered. “I just really stuffed up the third audition…I wanted it so desperately…I felt ‘Oh my God, that was the one that got away’… and then I got Game of Thrones.”
"Even in times when I thought that was “my” role, and I wanted it so badly, if I got it, I wouldn’t have been able to do Game of Thrones…If I had got that [Doc Martin] it would have been very difficult if not impossible to make that work. Things work out so it’s just trusting it."
Whelan was dispirited after not landing the Doc Martin role, even though she knew she wasn’t being “rejected”; sometimes you’re just not what a show is looking for and that’s okay. “But it hurts nonetheless because you know you’ve got an ego and you want to pay the mortgage, be wanted and be good at what you do.”
And that feeling probably didn’t go away immediately even after getting Game of Thrones, because who could have known what it would turn into? Since then tearing up the screen as Yara, Whelan has landed some other terrific roles, including in Gentleman Jack on HBO and the current season of Killing Eve on BBC America.
And of course, it’s next to impossible to picture anyone else as Yara. “So, trusting timing I suppose and believing in your abilities and, yeah, keep going,” Whelan concluded. Solid advice all around.
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