Inside Ambika Mod’s Career To Date

12 hours ago

Ahead of her appearance at Chelsea Arts Festival

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On Saturday 20 September, Ambika Mod will take to the stage at Chelsea’s Royal Court Theatre – though she won’t be performing. Instead she will be joining Nancy Durrant, Nick Clark and Nick Curtis for a special live recording of their London Theatre Review podcast, along with the theatre’s artistic director David Byrne, as part of the inaugural Chelsea Arts Festival. With two roles upcoming at the famously radical theatre and a plethora of stellar performances in her back catalogue, there will be plenty to talk about and it will be a treat for fans of the rising star. But if you are not quite familiar with the ins and outs of Mod’s career just yet, here’s a full guide to get you up to speed.

Who Is Ambika Mod?

Ambika Mod is a 29 year old British actress, comedian and writer, best known for her roles in the BBC’s adaptation of Adam Kay’s junior doctor memoir This Is Going To Hurt (2022) alongside Ben Whishaw, as well as leading Netflix miniseries One Day (2024) opposite Leo Woodall.

Leo Woodall & Ambika Mod in One Day. (© Ludovic Robert/Netflix)

Born and raised in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, Mod gained an interest in sketch comedy around the age of 16 after discovering SNL. ‘At that point though, I hadn’t done a lot of comedy so writing and performing sketches was still a daunting prospect,’ she said in a 2016 interview.

Mod went on to study English Literature at the University of Durham from 2014 to 2017, and it was here that she cut her teeth in the worlds of acting and comedy, performing sketch comedy through the university’s Revue and becoming president of the troupe in 2017.

‘I found out about the Durham Revue before coming to university and it was something I was very keen to be a part of but I never thought in a million years that I would actually get in,’ she previously said. ‘I had never written anything before auditioning for the Revue so that’s really where I got my start.’

In 2015, Mod performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with friend Tom Harper in a sketch show titled Cirque du Silly, returning to the Fringe in 2019 with Children of the Quorn and again in 2024 with 3.

Describing her influences, Mod notes ‘American comedy in general’ as having swayed her tastes and humour, sharing ‘I really love people like Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, and Steve Carell who are not only terrific comedic actors but who have also written a lot of their own material.

‘Growing up, I adored Friends (and still do) and would credit that show a lot to my comedic tastes and habits,’ she added.

After graduating from Durham, Mod moved back home with her parents and balanced her pursuit of an acting and comedy career with a day job as a personal assistant in the finance department at Condé Nast. But by night Mod was continuing to perform sketch comedy while auditioning for acting gigs. For a while, she struggled to land an agent, telling The Times ‘Nobody was interested – it was really disheartening.’

Shruti (AMBIKA MOD) in This Is Going To Hurt. (© BBC/Sister/AMC/Anika Molnar)

She starred in a handful of short films and had a small role in Apple TV series Trying (2021) before landing her role in This Is Going To Hurt (2022). Starring as overworked junior doctor Shruti Acharya, Mod’s performance received acclaim across the board.

Next came a role in the second series of Billie Piper’s I Hate Suzie (2022), before One Day (2024) shot Mod to international fame. An instant hit on Netflix, Mod stars as lead Emma Morley in the adaptation of David Nicholls’ beloved novel, in which two friends meet on the same date every year after a one night stand at the very end of university.

Since then, other than a handful of screen roles – including in Black Bag (2025) and Disney’s The Stolen Girl (2025) – Mod’s attention has been back on the stage: she starred in Nassim Soleimanpour’s White Rabbit Red Rabbit in 2024 at Soho Place, and she will return there in September to star in Every Brilliant Thing. She also has an upcoming role in adventure comedy film Sacrifice, starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Evans, Salma Hayek, Charli XCX and more, set to premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival on 6 September.

Come November, Mod will make her Royal Court debut in Sophia Chetin’s new work Porn Play, starring as an academic addicted to violent pornography. Joined by the Royal Court’s artistic director David Byrne, Mod will delve into her role at Chelsea Arts Festival as part of The London Theatre Review’s live podcast recording.