Gemma Elizabeth Whelan (born 23 April 1981) is an English actress and comedian known for portraying

Yara Greyjoy The characters from the medieval fantasy Television show, television series ''Game of Thrones'' are based on their respective counterparts from author George R. R. Martin's ''A Song of Ice and Fire'' series of novels. Set in a fictional univer ...

in the

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

fantasy-drama series ''

Game of Thrones ''Game of Thrones'' is an American fantasy drama television series created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for HBO. It is an adaptation of ''A Song of Ice and Fire'', a series of fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin, the first ...

''. She also plays Kate in all seasons of the comedy ''

Upstart Crow Upstart or upstarts may refer to: * HMS ''Upstart'', a Royal Navy U-class submarine *Upstart (company), an online lending marketplace *Upstart (software), a process management daemon used in several operating systems. * Upstart (sculpture), a publi ...

'', Detective Eunice Noon on the first season of ''

The End of the F***ing World ''The End of the F***ing World'' is a British black comedy-drama television programme. The eight-part first series premiered its first episode on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom on 24 October 2017, after which the following episodes were release ...

'' on

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

, and Geraldine on the third season of ''

Killing Eve ''Killing Eve'' is a British spy thriller television series, produced in the United Kingdom by Sid Gentle Films for BBC America and BBC Three. The series follows Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh), a British intelligence investigator tasked with capturi ...

''.

Early life

Whelan was born in

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

and grew up in the

Midlands The Midlands (also referred to as Central England) are a part of England that broadly correspond to the Kingdom of Mercia of the Early Middle Ages, bordered by Wales, Northern England and Southern England. The Midlands were important in the Ind ...

. She attended

The King's High School for Girls The King's High School (also called simply ''King's High'' or KHS) is an independent day school for girls on the Banbury Road, Warwick, England. One of its main feeder schools is Warwick Preparatory School, which takes girls from the ages of 3 ...

Warwick Warwick ( ) is a market town, civil parish and the county town of Warwickshire in the Warwick District in England, adjacent to the River Avon. It is south of Coventry, and south-east of Birmingham. It is adjoined with Leamington Spa and Whi ...

and the

London Studio Centre The London Studio Centre, in North Finchley, London, is a British dance and theatre school providing courses in classical ballet, contemporary dance, jazz dance, and musical theatre. It is accredited by the Council for Dance, Drama and Musical ...

Career

As a

stand-up comedian Stand-up comedy is a comedy, comedic performance to a live audience in which the performer addresses the audience directly from the stage. The performer is known as a comedian, a comic or a stand-up. Stand-up comedy consists of One-line joke ...

, Whelan won the 2010 Funny Women Variety Award. She performed at the 2013

Edinburgh Fringe The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...

with her show ''Chastity Butterworth & The Spanish Hamster''. In 2014 she recorded a pilot chat show as her character Chastity Butterworth for

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

. On screen, she has played supporting roles in several films and TV shows, including in the 2010 films ''

Gulliver's Travels ''Gulliver's Travels'', or ''Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships'' is a 1726 prose satire by the Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan ...

'' and '' The Wolfman''. She played Kate (appearing in all 18 main episodes, as well as three Christmas specials) in Ben Elton's

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

comedy ''

'' and was a series regular on ''

''. She also played roles in other comedies, including ''

Uncle An uncle is usually defined as a male relative who is a sibling of a parent or married to a sibling of a parent. Uncles who are related by birth are second-degree relatives. The female counterpart of an uncle is an aunt, and the reciprocal relat ...

'' and '' The Agency''. In August 2011, she was cast as

in the

fantasy-drama television series ''

'' and appeared as a recurring cast member from the second season onward. In 2017, she portrayed Karen Matthews in the two-part TV drama ''

The Moorside ''The Moorside'' is a 2017 two-part British television drama. Written by Neil McKay and directed by Paul Whittington, it stars Sheridan Smith, Gemma Whelan, Sian Brooke and Siobhan Finneran and was broadcast on BBC One in two one-hour episodes i ...

'', based on the 2008 disappearance of nine-year-old Shannon Matthews. In 2019, she appeared as Marian Lister in the BBC drama '' Gentleman Jack''. In February 2020, a stage adaptation of ''

'' opened at the

Gielgud Theatre The Gielgud Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Shaftesbury Avenue, at the corner of Rupert Street, in the City of Westminster, London. The house currently has 986 seats on three levels. The theatre was designed by W. G. R. Sprague an ...

, London, Whelan reprising the role of Kate. Whelan returned to the West End stage as Kate when the play was revived at the

Apollo Theatre The Apollo Theatre is a Grade II listed West End theatre, on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster, in central London.

in 2022.