“She said: ‘Strange they used so much original footage of her!’, and I said: ‘That’s all me, Mum. Whelan enjoys her ability to transform into her her characters, whether with Yara’s breastplate, war paint and mouthy scowl – “it would be almost insulting to be recognised from Game of Thrones” – or, in BBC One’s The Moorside, as Karen Matthews, the Yorkshire woman jailed for faking the abduction of her daughter, so physically transformed that it fooled Whelan’s mum. Despite high-level acting credits – including Yara Greyjoy in Game of Thrones and Kate in BBC Two’s Upstart Crow – the 40-year-old says she is never recognised in the street: “People sometimes say, ‘Do I know you from the bus stop?’ or, ‘Were we at school?’ That’s it really.”
