Yasmin Finney needs no introduction as she takes her stage. The crowds, gathered for the denouement of Pride Month in Trafalgar Square, swell around the actress, undeterred by the London drizzle that falls gently on them. Dressed in a sheer lace slip dress, with a new Mia Farrow-inspired crop, Finney bellows, ‘What time is it?!’ from the foot of Nelson’s Column, to which the crowd shouts back, ‘It’s Trans Pride!’
If anything, it’s Yasmin Finney’s time — and she is rising to the occasion with characteristic elan. ‘For me, every month is Pride Month,’ she explains, when we meet in the quieter setting of The Design Museum in Kensington. ‘When Marsha P Johnson threw the brick at Stonewall, it was a pivotal moment. She was a Black trans woman, but she did it for all queer people. I feel like I have a little bit of Marsha P Johnson in me. I feel a spiritual connect to all of my ancestors that came before me and the power that I hold, the power that they held and the power that keeps on giving.’ Does that great power come with even greater responsibility? ‘It’s a huge weight that I don’t know if I’m ever going to fathom. I think, “Wow, what can I do next? What can I do to really make a change politically, environmentally, and [also] my well-being? What can I do to make sure that I’m healthy and that my mental health is always first, but also putting my community first and impressing everyone and trying to fight for my rights at the same time?”’
It sounds… exhausting. ‘Who wants to live a life where they have to fight for rights? Especially at such a young age. I wouldn’t want any person or any child of any nature to have to fight for their existence and their dignity. It’s stripped away from you and you’re kind of humbled. I’m humbled all the time. I have this amazing life and I should feel amazing, but my trans identity is also a big part of me.’
I’d never seen a young British trans character that I could look up to and be like, “Wow, that is who I am.”
Finney speaks with such passion and authority, it’s all too easy to forget she is only 19 years old. It’s even easier to forget that three years ago she was relatively unknown before answering a casting call splashed across social media for Elle Argent in the TV adaptation of Heartstopper. Based on Alice Oseman’s YA books of the same name, the centrifugal force of the show is a group of four school friends grappling with the usual teen tropes of first love, friendship politics and wrestling with the cocktail of hormones that peaks around puberty.
It was groundbreaking, too, with its tender depiction of sexuality and LGBTQ+ representation. To date, there have been no other notable examples of a young British trans woman playing a central character in a British drama. ‘I was at school not that long ago. I can remember everything, and I remember specifically there being only a handful of shows that had any sort of representation. If they did it would be American shows. I’d never seen a young British trans character that I could look up to and be like, “Wow, that is who I am.”’
To the delight of Heartstopper fans (Heartstans?), the show is back for a second season this summer (and has been greenlit for a third, too). Finney teases that we will be seeing a lot more of Elle: ‘[It was] amazing but also new for me. I just took it and I ran. I’d still be learning my lines the night before filming, praying everything went well… it did, and I killed it every time.’
Art, it soon becomes clear, is a big part of Elle’s evolution this season: hence Finney’s choice of venue for our meeting. Though looking at past interviews, you soon discover she rarely does a trad ‘sit down’ conversation, preferring to roller-skate, trampoline or do anything that involves some sort of movement. ‘It’s about getting your mind going. I think it’s so easy to sit in a room, with a phone there, and have all these things prepped, like a robot. I’m always just like, “Okay, what have I not said? What is a different side to me that I want people to know about?”’
In terms of Elle’s character, art ‘really unlocks something. It’s kind of like when you find a passion for something when you’re so young, you just want to fulfil that. What’s inspiring to me isn’t just the fact that she’s trans or unconditionally herself — I think it’s that she’s so ambitious and knows what she wants to do. She knows that she wants to go into that world and she’s got her eyes on the goal.’
I’ve always had the mindset of an independent woman
Growing up, was Finney just as driven? ‘I was still getting to grips with who I was in high school. Drama became my passion, but it was a double-edged sword — I’d get put into roles that were male roles [and] be like, “Ugh.”’ Being raised in a strict Catholic home in one of the poorest parts of Manchester also took a toll on her trajectory: ‘Mum was obviously struggling, a Black woman barely able to afford meals and not having a husband to help her out. She didn’t expect me to be feminine or flamboyant — she just expected me to be her ideal son, which was understandable. Because nobody really does expect that, you know?’ Some would argue that the absence of a father figure only catalysed problems at home, but as Finney explains it only helped mould her into the woman she was destined to become: ‘I’d never had my life with a male figure in it, so I’ve always had the mindset of an independent woman.’
Coming out at school was much easier. ‘I think I came out as trans in Year 9. I was such a naughty kid, but I loved it and I had the best friendship group’ — and formative experiences were shaped by books and films that captured what it meant to be trans. ‘Paris is Burning [was] very iconic for me and I remember watching it under the bedsheets, thinking, “What. Is. This?” I remember watching it on my mum’s phone and feeling the need to hide and have this moment to myself.’
At the time, Finney was also privately navigating access to hormone therapy on the NHS, something she soon discovered was woefully inadequate. ‘I think hormone replacement therapy is not talked about enough,’ she says. ‘The system that we are in now [with] the NHS is a minimum five-year waiting list to get even a consultation for your HRT. It’s a long process. And, if you’re not privileged enough to be able to get private care, it can really make you overthink and [ask], “Is this the right path for me?” It’s definitely a tactic that the Government employs, to make you wait all this time just to think and overthink.’
‘Sixteen-year-old Yasmin wanted to be a model. She wanted to be… not even on the cover of a magazine, just to be valued as a gorgeous woman.’ There’s a beautiful irony that Finney has managed to start her hormone therapy properly now, ‘completely self-funded’ through lucrative brand campaigns and beauty endorsements with the likes of Tiffany & Co and YSL, all by simply being herself. The start of the therapy has left Finney feeling a little more fragile than usual: ‘I’m very emotional. My levels are just evening out and I’m getting into the female puberty and it’s kind of interesting. With my HRT I’m seeing my breasts grow and a change in my mentality towards my body. I’m feeling more confident within myself.’
There’s another reason for this new-found confidence. While talking about her adopted pomeranian, Coco, who makes a sweet cameo on set during Finney’s ES Magazine cover shoot, there’s a Freudian slip. ‘I’m going through a second puberty as well as going through a pivotal time in my career and I’ve also got a dog, I’ve got another living orgasm that I’ve got to look after…’ Wait, orgasm? A flash of a smile. ‘Well, yes. I recently found someone but you never know, it’s always up and down. But I’ve got a good feeling about this one. We actually drove to Alexandra Palace yesterday — I mean, we went there for sunset and we didn’t get the sunset, we kind of just got a whole lot of cloud and a whole lot of romance. Thank God I brought my blanket.’ When it comes to dating, Finney confesses she is ‘very picky. I’ll have fun for sure, but when it comes to serious, serious relationships, I have to know. I’ve been in relationships in the past, only one boyfriend, but leading up to relationships [it becomes] very sexual, like you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.’
Makes sense, then, that Finney’s immediate plans are firmly rooted in London, a long, hot summer of romance interspersed with walks in Battersea Park with Coco, catching the tennis at Wimbledon or some lowkey drinks by the river at her favourite pub, The Ship, in Wandsworth. Good thing, as from September things are going to ramp up with work. The juiciest rumour? That Finney is set to follow in the footsteps of Billie Piper and Jenna Coleman as the new assistant to Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor Who.
‘Where’s the cameras?!’ she jokes when I bring the rumours up, deflecting like a pro. Being cast as Rose for the Doctor Who anniversary specials was ‘a surreal moment. I grew up watching it — it was prestige television, the crème de la crème, and it still is. To be part of that world, and around some of TV’s gold stars, is a blessing.’ Not least because of the dishy new Doctor and fellow teen screen idol, Ncuti? ‘We’re absolutely intertwined, and I think we complement each other so well.’
Which brings us somehow to time travel. ‘If I could go back to any decade? I love the Eighties — the big Afros, the flares, the roller-skates, the bold make-up. Sure, there were riots and movements, but everything felt pure and real.’ Closer to home, if she could go back and speak to her younger self, what advice would she impart? ‘Hold on. Hold on to you and don’t lose yourself in all the loud noise and discrimination. You don’t need to please anyone. You, being yourself, is just enough. Because it’s so loud, the bullying is so loud and the internet is so loud. The politics are so long and the environment is so loud. All you need is your own self-gratification. All you need is your own self-belief that who I am is enough, it will be enough and what I am is everything and more.’ ‘Heartstopper’ season two is released on Netflix on 3 Aug. This shoot and interview were carried out ahead of the union strikes.
