If Ambika Mod had not had her own One Day moment—the kind of blink-and-you’ll-miss it serendipitous collision that alters your entire life path—I’d probably run into her in the office. It was while she was working as a PA in the finance department of Condé Nast that the butterfly wings of destiny fluttered and redirected her course, putting her on the road to Netflix superstardom as the lead of the beloved book’s soon-to-be-released television adaptation.
“I had arranged a Hinge date with this guy,” she tells me over Zoom. “I was so close to cancelling. But I thought, it’s a really nice day, I’ll just go.” Walking out of King’s Cross station, she ran into a comedian she’d worked with before, who was now writing for The Mash Report. He offered to bring her into a sketch. That first TV job led to her getting signed by an agent, which led to her scene-stealing role in This Is Going to Hurt. “If either of us had come up the station two minutes earlier or later, we would have missed each other,” she says, eyes widening a bit. “That chance encounter was the catalyst for so many big changes in my career. I really choose to believe in synchronicities, coincidences, patterns, meaning, and symbolism. And I never went out on another date with that guy.”
While Ambika Mod captures all shades of Emma in One Day, delivering each laugh-out-loud moment and tear-jerking line in a way that feels so natural and effortless that I expected her to have a Leeds accent, Mod never saw herself in the role. As a “massive” fan of the book, she rejected the audition at first. Even knee-deep into filming, she couldn’t quite see herself in the part, having grown up with a different picture of Emma in her head. “I didn’t remember being anything like the character, but then when I re-read it, I realised how wrong I was… The more that I played her, the more I identified with her,” she says. “And as she grew, I grew alongside her. Which sounds like a really wanky thing to say, but I think it’s no coincidence.”
Below, Ambika Mod talks about the vital importance of diverse casting and her School of Rock sing-a-longs with co-star Leo Woodall through her experience as the female lead of One Day.
How did you build the chemistry between you and Leo Woodall?
I use the term creative chemistry. Working with Leo was really, really easy. Because we shot largely chronologically, we had the benefit of building Emma and Dexter’s relationship as our own friendship grew, so we let it happen naturally. And the writing was so good that everything just kind of seemed to flow. Sometimes you are trying to force moments—we never really had a problem with any of that.
What were the funniest moments together?
The second shoot, we went to Arthur’s Seat, which was my favourite day on set because it was so gorgeous up there. Leo and I were still getting to know each other, and we sat on the seat and sang “School of Rock”. I’d watched [the film] the night before and Leo was a massive fan. He literally knew all the words, all of Jack Black’s little asides and everything. It was very funny.
You’re used to doing comedy; how did you find your first venture into romance?
I struggled to see myself as a romantic lead because I just never, ever thought that I would be in this position. But this story is so much more than just a romance—it’s about life; growing up; friendship. Emma and Dexter are just one part of each other’s narratives. But it was obviously an adjustment in my head to think about myself in that space.
Why?
I didn’t grow up seeing women who looked like me playing romantic leads. I didn’t think I could play the girl the guy fell in love with. If I had seen a show like One Day growing up, I wouldn’t worry about me and Leo being a believable Emma and Dexter because it would have been demonstrated to me already. The only time I can recall a South Asian woman being a romantic lead is Bridgerton or Never Have I Ever, and those are both very recent. What we see in film and TV sets a cultural precedent, and sets the norm.
What did you make of the difficult portrayal of fame for Dexter, and that idea of “TV is fickle” as an actor starting out on television?
Dexter is famous in the ’90s, so a very different landscape from today—perhaps more brutal. The way that celebrities were treated—there wasn’t any social media and when it came to controlling the narrative, the paparazzi had so much power. I don’t know about “fickle”, but today, there’s so much being made, which is obviously incredible, but I think work doesn’t necessarily have the same impact. People aren’t gathering around their TVs at 7pm on a Saturday to watch terrestrial television. It’s certainly more competitive. You’ve just got to focus on yourself and not settle for less than you deserve. It’s so hard to be a woman in this industry. You really have to fight for yourself. As long as you’re doing things that feel fulfilling, that’s all you can do. The rest is out of your control—who watches it, what they think of it, what the reviews are going to be like.
What are some of the experiences you’ve had that made you realise how much harder it is for women?
This might be more specific to being a young brown woman, but I’ve been very, very lucky in my acting career so far to play incredibly interesting, complex characters—but that’s not representative of what it’s like out there generally. There aren’t the roles for women who look like me, or young women of colour in general. The characters are often written as sidekicks, or are there to facilitate the plot, but there’s a lack of depth. That’s something I’m definitely going to advocate for.
You said your life might be different if you saw the representation this show provides when you were younger. What do you hope for the next generation watching?
I just hope that they are shown what they deserve. When you’re a teenage girl, you really get beaten down for the stuff that you like. Even when you get older, the stuff that women like isn’t the stuff that’s valued or nominated for awards. Especially for young women, I hope even if society is slow to change, there’s a mindset shift and they ask for what they deserve and stand up for themselves. That’s only something that I’ve been able to do in the last couple of years because I’ve gained confidence from the roles that I’ve done. I wish I could have had that from earlier on in my life: the ability to really stand up for myself and call things out.
This article was originally published on British Vogue.
