Yasmin Finney is just getting started
For the cover of Gay Times Magazine, Yasmin Finney speaks to P. Eldridge about the whirlwind after Heartstopper, breaking the mould of trans representation, and why her boldest role is still ahead.
Words by P. Eldridge
Yasmin Finney is mid-conversation with someone when I approach, her laughter cutting cleanly through the music. It’s too loud to hear each other properly, so we step outside into the cooler air, the muffled thump of sound still pulsing through the walls behind us.
There’s an immediate warmth in her presence – open, self-assured, and quick to laugh – but also a considered precision in the way she talks about her craft. What follows is a conversation that moves easily between her rise to prominence on Heartstopper, the charged thrill of stepping into Doctor Who, and the roles she still aches to play; those subversive, complicated characters she feels are waiting for her.
Finney speaks with the clarity of someone who has weathered both the exhilaration and the scrutiny of early success, reflecting on trans representation, the unpredictability of a freelance career, and her dream of one day stepping into a Sean Baker film. Beneath her candour is an unshakable sense of possibility; that this is only the opening scene of a story still being written.