Ambika Mod shouldn’t be ready to be a footnote in 2024. After hustling via improv and a breakout flip in BBC miniseries This Is Going to Harm, this 12 months noticed her greatest 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 earth, 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 Right here, she talks about rising up, rising outdated and wishing folks would focus much less on her race.
DEADLINE: How has life been because the launch of One Day?
AMBIKA MOD: It’s actually mad, to be sincere. I had an thought it might be massive as a result of it was on Netflix, however I didn’t assume folks would connect with it the way in which they’re. I don’t wish to sound self-important, however the purpose is for folks to answer your work, and I’m glad folks assume we’ve performed justice to the ebook.
I’ve additionally been studying to set boundaries recently. With a present like One Day the place individuals are so emotionally invested, as an actor typically folks assume they’ve a little bit of you. There are particular occasions folks 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 facet of it.
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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 after I was doing press for this present. [Prejudice] might be such a refined however insidious double-edged sword that most individuals wouldn’t even discover it.
When folks talked about my white co-star [Leo Woodall]’s efficiency, they might typically discuss 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’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 enthusiastic 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 approach.
It’s been difficult as a result of folks simply aren’t able to see individuals who aren’t lovely 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 business for thus 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 are feeling like there’s an unstated strain to talk for all brown folks in a approach?
MOD: Completely. I believe that’s, sadly, the truth for many individuals of shade. Anybody who feels that their identification is marginalized isn’t meant to be a spokesperson for a a lot larger group of individuals. I’d by no means have considered 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 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 lady who adjustments herself for the person or will get a makeover. Emma is aware of her greatest 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. At first, she lacks confidence, looks like an outsider, and she or he’s the underdog in quite a lot of methods. I believe that’s why Emma being performed by a lady of shade in the end provides complexity to her position. However I 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, flawed time’. Do you assume if it was the precise particular person, there wouldn’t be a flawed time?
MOD: No, I believe timing is all the pieces in relationships.
The probability of two folks being in love with one another on the precise proper time, being prepared for that love at a time like that, nearly appears unimaginable. I’ve all the time believed in ‘proper particular person for proper now’ — if there’s an individual in any respect — somewhat 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 had been within the second they met.
There’s quite a lot 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 appear to be. 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 massive break?
MOD: I drew on quite a lot of private expertise, for Emma’s early days particularly. There’s the entire thing of eager to be a selected 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 in all probability thought of conventionally enticing. That’s positively one thing I relate to, particularly as a result of she in all probability 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 following day. On the weekends I’d be writing, and I went to the Edinburgh Fringe Pageant each summer time. I actually don’t know the place I acquired that vitality from, as a result of I may by no means do 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 a very powerful factor on the earth to me, and I assumed, ‘If I cease, I’ll cease [for good],’ so I simply saved going.
Mod with Ben Whishaw in That is Going to Harm.
AMC/Sister Photos/BBC Studios/Everett Assortment
DEADLINE: How do you assume your comedy and improv background has knowledgeable your appearing?
MOD: Even when someway I find yourself doing essentially the most critical movie that there ever was, my comedy coaching will inform it not directly. I by no means wish to cease performing dwell comedy, particularly improv, as a result of it teaches you which you could fail. I bear in mind shortly after This Is Going to Harm got here out, I used to be on cloud 9. Then I did an improv gig and we died on our arses. And I assumed, “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 unprecedented. There would hardly ever 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 right here.
DEADLINE: What scenes had 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 had been the toughest as a result of they had been so emotionally pivotal to Emma. These had 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 nearly 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 gown. We shot the entire thing in two days, so we needed to know our stuff. A number of the present was actually like doing theater, in a approach.
DEADLINE: The place do you see your profession going subsequent?
MOD: My subsequent mission 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 facet of myself folks aren’t used to. At this level in my life, I wish to really feel the identical approach about my subsequent mission 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 seek out the factor that excites me once more.
