Ambika Mod isn’t ready to be a footnote in 2024. After hustling via improv and a breakout flip in BBC miniseries This Is Going to Damage, this 12 months noticed her largest hit but — the lead function 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 this planet, Mod’s personal journey has overlapped with Emma’s greater than as soon as. Right here, she talks about rising up, rising outdated and wishing individuals would focus much less on her race.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 sincere. I had an thought it might be large as a result of it was on Netflix, however I didn’t suppose individuals would hook up with it the best way they’re. I don’t wish to sound self-important, however the objective is for individuals to reply to your work, and I’m glad individuals suppose we’ve carried out justice to the ebook.
I’ve additionally been studying to set boundaries currently. With a present like One Day the place persons are so emotionally invested, as an actor typically individuals assume they’ve a little bit of you. There are particular instances individuals ask for pictures 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.
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DEADLINE: How has being an individual of coloration 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] might be such a delicate 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’d typically speak about his appearing 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 might suppose, ‘What about my efficiency and my work?’
I might say my being British really knowledgeable my expertise of taking part in Emma Morley greater than my being Indian, though I wouldn’t utterly erase it from the equation. I really feel very privileged and keen about speaking about illustration, however on the opposite finish of the spectrum, I’m right here to do a job identical to my white counterparts, and I would like my work to be appreciated and reviewed in the very same means.
It’s been difficult as a result of individuals simply aren’t able to see individuals who aren’t stunning white ladies 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 drawback, nevertheless it’s not my drawback 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 means?
MOD: Completely. I believe that’s, sadly, the fact for many individuals of coloration. Anybody who feels that their identification is marginalized isn’t meant to be a spokesperson for a a lot larger group of individuals. I might by no means have regarded as the identical as any South Asian woman who comes as much as me on the street and says, “I really like Emma, watching One Day is the primary time I noticed a South Asian woman on this means.” I’m so glad that they had that have watching the present, however I additionally acknowledge that they’re their very own particular person.
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DEADLINE: So why do you personally love Emma?
MOD: Anybody who is aware of the ebook is aware of that One Day is Emma’s ebook. The trope of the heroine within the rom-com style is both the Manic Pixie Dream Lady 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 she or he makes use of that. She by no means dumbed herself down. She by no means made herself small. To start with, she lacks confidence, seems like an outsider, and she or he’s the underdog in loads of methods. I believe that’s why Emma being performed by a girl of coloration in the end provides complexity to her function. However I really like her a lot as a result of she grows into her personal particular person, and she or he doesn’t develop in relation to Dexter. Their relationship is admittedly vital to her life on a grander scale, however within the day-to-day, this can be 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.
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DEADLINE: Dex and Emma embody the favored idea of ‘proper particular person, improper time’. Do you suppose if it was the best particular person, there wouldn’t be a improper time?
MOD: No, I believe timing is every little thing in relationships.
The chance of two individuals being in love with one another on the actual proper time, being prepared for that love at a time like that, virtually appears unattainable. I’ve at all times believed in ‘proper particular person for proper now’ — if there’s an individual in any respect — moderately 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 loads of 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.
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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 large break?
MOD: I drew on loads of private expertise, for Emma’s early days particularly. There’s the entire thing of eager to be a particular type 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 engaging. 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 might get up at 6, work a full-time job, go to a gig, be house by 11:30, and do all of it once more the following day. On the weekends I might be writing, and I went to the Edinburgh Fringe Competition each summer season. I truthfully don’t know the place I bought that vitality from, as a result of I might by no means do this now. I used to be simply f*cking formidable, 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 a very powerful factor on this planet to me, and I believed, ‘If I cease, I’ll cease [for good],’ so I simply stored going.
Mod with Ben Whishaw in That is Going to Damage.
AMC/Sister Footage/BBC Studios/Everett Assortment
DEADLINE: How do you suppose your comedy and improv background has knowledgeable your appearing?
MOD: Even when someway I find yourself doing essentially the most severe movie that there ever was, my comedy coaching will inform it in a roundabout way. I by no means wish to cease performing dwell comedy, particularly improv, as a result of it teaches you you could fail. I keep 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 are able to nonetheless fail!”
Comedy has additionally given me good instincts. On One Day we might be capturing 10 pages of script in a day, which is exceptional. There would not often be time to go house after a 16-hour day and dissect 10 extra pages, so I might simply must belief my instincts and my reference to my co-star.
Learn the digital version of Deadline’s Emmy Drama journal right 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 remodel right into a grown-up, realized girl, so it felt actually vital 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. Lots of the present was truthfully like doing theater, in a means.
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 might like to do one thing chaotic and absurd and off the wall to point out a aspect of myself individuals aren’t used to. At this level in my life, I wish to really feel the identical means about my subsequent challenge as I did about One Day, the place I’m taking part in a meaty, fascinating 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.