In conversation: Ambika Mod
She shattered our hearts as a junior doctor in This is Going to Hurt. Now, the Bafta Breakout winner is about to do it all again with a starring role in Netflix’s adaptation of the beloved novel One Day
ASK AMBIKA MOD ABOUT PLAYING THE lead in One Day, Netflix’s new adaptation of David Nicholls’ 2009 bestseller, and she’ll tell you it’s a ‘dream come true’. Not only is it one of the season’s most anticipated new shows, but it’s also based on her all-time favourite novel. Mod was 13 when she first picked up a copy of the book. ‘Everyone at school was reading it. I remember seeing that orange-and-white cover all over public transport – it was everywhere.’
With that in mind, you’d think that when she was approached about the series, it would be a no-brainer. Wrong: ‘I said no,’ Mod tells me, explaining how she continously turned down her agents’ pleas with a matter-of-fact air. ‘I loved the book so much, I think I was scared. This is Going to Hurt had just come out, and it was a lot. I was overwhelmed.’
What happened next? ‘This is not an exaggeration,’ says Mod. ‘A month later, I woke up in the middle of the night and thought, “I’ve made a terrible mistake!”’ The next day, she called her agent and begged for an audition. Thankfully, the rest is history.
Like the book – and somewhat mediocre 2011 film adaptation – the TV series follows the evolving relationship between Dexter Mayhew (played by The White Lotus’ Leo Woodall) and Emma Morley, two graduates who meet on their last night at Edinburgh University and stumble into adulthood together. ‘It’s a story about love, friendship, growing up, and all the mess that comes with it’.
There’s another reason Mod felt the pressure to perform. Anne Hathaway played Emma Morley in the film and, though it’s not stated in the book, the character is assumed to be white. Mod, who is British-Indian, knew her casting would mean something to Brown women, this writer included. ‘Even if I wasn’t playing a character originally written as white, when very few people in certain positions look like you, you do feel that sense of
responsibility. It shouldn’t be the case; white, male actors aren’t going around thinking that.’
Her path to Emma Morley may have been a complicated one, but Mod’s performance is spellbinding. From a bright-eyed graduate to a burnt-out thirtysomething, she nails everything that made the character so relatable: her strong will and her fleeting moments of social anxiety, masked by a wonderfully acerbic wit. It’s these qualities in its female protagonist that allowed One Day to swerve mawkish romance territory and end up in the pantheon of great love stories. ‘Emma is really funny,’ says Mod. ‘That’s one of her defining characteristics. We often use humour to undercut moments of sentimentality: that felt very natural to me.’
It was comedy that led Mod to acting in the first place. A childhood love of Noughties sitcoms developed to an adolescence spent at open-mic nights in Potters Bar, where she grew up. ‘I was 18 the first time I performed live. I remember thinking, “This is it, I’ve found the best feeling in the world”.’
At Durham, she joined the university’s prestigious sketch-comedy group, the Revue. ‘After I graduated, I was gigging and writing and doing all of these auditions for small parts, and not really getting anywhere.’ Then, out of nowhere, came the This is Going to Hurt audition. ‘[The part] was heavy, but [the character’s] sense of humour resonated with me so much. I thought, “This is mine.”’
Landing the role in the BBC adaptation of Adam Kay’s memoir, which was filmed during the Covid-19 pandemic, changed Mod’s life. She played Shruti, a junior doctor under the tutelage of Ben Whishaw’s consultant. It’s a brutal look at the Sisyphean pressures on NHS staff. ‘I’m glad that we didn’t shy away from the realities of what it is to be a junior doctor today, because it’s not fair on the people we’re representing. Obstetrics and gynaecology doctors have similar levels of PTSD to war veterans – it’s something that people don’t know or talk about.’
Between the heartbreaking moments – of which there are many – there’s gallows humour in the grimmest of situations, and it’s Mod’s ability as a performer to draw this out that makes her such an on-screen force. It was her first proper TV role, one that landed her the 2022 Bafta Breakout. Whishaw won Best Actor, and dedicated the award to Mod in his speech. She says she learnt a lot from her co-star. ‘Ben is so truthful. He has so much humility.’
Another inspiration is Emma Thompson, her Bafta mentor. (‘Sorry to name-drop,’ she says.) ‘We went on a walk and she told me, “There’s no such thing as a career. There’s only what you do next.” That’s so freeing, because you can’t ever plan – it’s just too huge and out of your control.’
The uncertainty can still be difficult for a self-confessed ‘stresspot’, and Mod likens the process of waiting for One Day’s release to ‘purgatory’. ‘It’s like my death day, because I just can’t think beyond it,’ she says. With One Day airing this month, her death day is fast approaching, but Mod feels surprisingly stoic. ‘It’s such a joyful series. It’s moving and gripping, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously. It feels like life, so I hope that, if anything, it brings a sense of comfort to people.’
‘One Day’ is on Netflix from 8 February