Ambika Mod will not be ready to be a footnote in 2024. After hustling by way of improv and a breakout flip in BBC miniseries This Is Going to Damage, this 12 months noticed her largest hit but — the lead position of Emma Morley in Netflix’s adaptation of David Nicholls’ novel One Day. Paired with Leo Woodall’s Dexter Mayhew, Mod sensitively performs Emma’s loves, wins and failures over 20 years. As a twenty-something determining her place on the planet, Mod’s personal journey has overlapped with Emma’s greater than as soon as. Right here, she talks about rising up, rising previous and wishing individuals would focus much less on her race.
DEADLINE: How has life been for the reason that launch of One Day?
AMBIKA MOD: It’s actually mad, to be trustworthy. I had an thought it could be huge as a result of it was on Netflix, however I didn’t assume individuals would hook up with it the way in which they’re. I don’t wish to sound self-important, however the purpose is for individuals to reply to your work, and I’m glad individuals assume we’ve achieved justice to the e-book.
I’ve additionally been studying to set boundaries currently. With a present like One Day the place individuals are so emotionally invested, as an actor typically individuals assume they’ve a little bit of you. There are specific occasions individuals ask for images and I do say no. Nobody actually teaches you these items, and it’s private to everybody, however sure, I’ve been determining the public-facing aspect of it.
DEADLINE: How has being an individual of shade in a narrative that beforehand portrayed white characters impacted you?
MOD: The colour of my pores and skin has been a large a part of the discourse once I was doing press for this present. [Prejudice] may be such a refined however insidious double-edged sword that most individuals wouldn’t even discover it.
When individuals talked about my white co-star [Leo Woodall]’s efficiency, they might usually speak about his performing and the standard of his work, whereas with me — not on a regular basis — it was about how superb it was that I’m brown, and what a change-making casting selection it was. I’d assume, ‘What about my efficiency and my work?’
I’d say my being British really knowledgeable my expertise of enjoying Emma Morley greater than my being Indian, though I wouldn’t utterly erase it from the equation. I really feel very privileged and obsessed with speaking about illustration, however on the opposite finish of the spectrum, I’m right here to do a job similar to my white counterparts, and I need my work to be appreciated and reviewed in the very same approach.
It’s been difficult as a result of individuals simply aren’t able to see individuals who aren’t lovely white girls on display. I additionally noticed that it wasn’t simply me, they tear down anybody who doesn’t match the norm that has been fed to us by this trade for therefore lengthy. It’s a bigger inner downside, nevertheless it’s not my downside to repair single-handedly.
Ambika Mod with Leo Woodall in One Day.
Teddy Cavendish/Netflix
DEADLINE: Do you’re feeling like there’s an unstated stress to talk for all brown individuals in a approach?
MOD: Completely. I believe that’s, sadly, the fact for many individuals of shade. Anybody who feels that their id is marginalized isn’t meant to be a spokesperson for a a lot greater group of individuals. I’d by no means have regarded as the identical as any South Asian lady who comes as much as me on the street and says, “I like Emma, watching One Day is the primary time I noticed a South Asian lady on this approach.” I’m so glad that they had that have watching the present, however I additionally acknowledge that they’re their very own individual.
DEADLINE: So why do you personally love Emma?
MOD: Anybody who is aware of the e-book is aware of that One Day is Emma’s e-book. The trope of the heroine within the rom-com style is both the Manic Pixie Dream Woman or the girl who adjustments herself for the person or will get a makeover. Emma is aware of her finest qualities are her intelligence and her wit, and he or she makes use of that. She by no means dumbed herself down. She by no means made herself small. To start with, she lacks confidence, looks like an outsider, and he or she’s the underdog in numerous methods. I believe that’s why Emma being performed by a lady of shade finally provides complexity to her position. However I like her a lot as a result of she grows into her personal individual, and he or she doesn’t develop in relation to Dexter. Their relationship is absolutely essential to her life on a grander scale, however within the day-to-day, it is a story about rising up. That is so tacky, and I hate saying this, however Emma may be very a lot the hero of her personal life.
DEADLINE: Dex and Emma embody the favored idea of ‘proper individual, unsuitable time’. Do you assume if it was the suitable individual, there wouldn’t be a unsuitable time?
MOD: No, I believe timing is all the things in relationships.
The chance of two individuals being in love with one another on the precise proper time, being prepared for that love at a time like that, virtually appears unattainable. I’ve at all times believed in ‘proper individual for proper now’ — if there’s an individual in any respect — slightly than this concept of an everlasting love. Emma and Ian turned out to not be proper for one another in the long term, however they have been within the second they met.
There’s numerous judgment round Emma and the way she waited for Dexter and determined to take him again. These are two very particular characters with particular lives, and the present doesn’t declare to touch upon what love ought to seem like. That is simply David Nicholls’ story.
DEADLINE: Emma works at an assortment of jobs earlier than discovering her calling to be a author. Did that remind you of your personal time working at John Lewis and Condé Nast earlier than your huge break?
MOD: I drew on numerous private expertise, for Emma’s early days particularly. There’s the entire thing of eager to be a particular form of artist however feeling like you’re a tiny fish in a large pond — she doesn’t have cash, she doesn’t have connections, she’s not white, she’s not most likely thought-about conventionally enticing. That’s undoubtedly one thing I relate to, particularly as a result of she most likely has to work her arse off to get a fraction of what somebody like Dexter is given freed from cost.
In my early 20s, I’d get up at 6, work a full-time job, go to a gig, be dwelling by 11:30, and do all of it once more the subsequent day. On the weekends I’d be writing, and I went to the Edinburgh Fringe Competition each summer season. I actually don’t know the place I bought that vitality from, as a result of I might by no means try this now. I used to be simply f*cking bold, I suppose.
There’s an actual liberty and shamefulness in life, to being younger and wanting one thing so badly. I look again and the sheer willpower of it astounds me. My profession is an important factor on the planet to me, and I believed, ‘If I cease, I’ll cease [for good],’ so I simply saved going.
Mod with Ben Whishaw in That is Going to Damage.
AMC/Sister Footage/BBC Studios/Everett Assortment
DEADLINE: How do you assume your comedy and improv background has knowledgeable your performing?
MOD: Even when someway I find yourself doing probably the most critical movie that there ever was, my comedy coaching will inform it ultimately. I by no means wish to cease performing stay comedy, particularly improv, as a result of it teaches you that you would be able to fail. I bear in mind shortly after This Is Going to Damage got here out, I used to be on cloud 9. Then I did an improv gig and we died on our arses. And I believed, “Oh, we will nonetheless fail!”
Comedy has additionally given me good instincts. On One Day we might be taking pictures 10 pages of script in a day, which is unparalleled. There would not often be time to go dwelling after a 16-hour day and dissect 10 extra pages, so I’d simply must belief my instincts and my reference to my co-star.
Learn the digital version of Deadline’s Emmy Drama journal here.
DEADLINE: What scenes have been hardest to shoot for One Day?
MOD: There have been so many scenes that I learn and thought, “I’m only a comic, who do I believe I’m to be doing these heightened, dramatic set items?” From my perspective, the argument on the road in Episode 7, and the breakup with Ian in Episode 8 have been the toughest as a result of they have been so emotionally pivotal to Emma. These have been the final episodes earlier than we see her rework right into a grown-up, realized girl, so it felt actually essential to get proper. The maze scene in Episode 10 was virtually 30 pages lengthy, and we filmed it in a freezing, damp warehouse in West London. You may’t see it, however I had UGG boots and leggings on below my costume. We shot the entire thing in two days, so we needed to know our stuff. A whole lot of the present was actually like doing theater, in a approach.
DEADLINE: The place do you see your profession going subsequent?
MOD: My subsequent challenge is Playdate with Jim Sturgess, who performed Dex within the One Day film. He was fairly supportive of the present really and texted me that he loved watching it.
I’d like to do one thing chaotic and absurd and off the wall to indicate a aspect of myself individuals aren’t used to. At this level in my life, I wish to really feel the identical approach about my subsequent challenge as I did about One Day, the place I’m enjoying a meaty, attention-grabbing character that exists in her personal proper. That’s set a really excessive bar, and I’ve been very fortunate to have that so early on in my profession. I’m in no rush, however I’m prepared to search out the factor that excites me once more.
