Indira Varma to Play Mysterious New Role of The Duchess in Regenerated ‘Doctor Who’
- The British Indian actress will hook up with the 15th Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa, in the series which will air globally on Disney+ for the first time.
British Indian actress Indira Anne Varma is the latest big name to join the regenerated “Doctor Who,” according to Deadline. She will play the mysterious new role of “The Duchess,” and will hook up with the 15th Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa, in the series which will air globally on Disney+ for the first time, the report added. She previously appeared in the “Doctor Who” spin-off “Torchwood” in the 2000s.
Calling the Duchess’ part “truly spectacular,” Varma said she’s “thrilled to be in ‘Doctor Who’ and particularly excited to be crossing cosmic paths with Ncuti, as the doctor, and looks forward “to creating interplanetary mischief with him.”
Varma, 49, will set to star as Empress Natalya in “Dune: The Sisterhood.” Her previous credits include “Obi-Wan Kenobi, “The Capture” and “Patrick Melrose.”
Varma, 49, was most recently seen in the ABC drama, “For Life,” where she plays a reform-minded, gay prison warden, has carved out an incredible career onstage and on-screen.
According to her IMDb bio, Varma’s television credits include the award-winning hit HBO series, “Game of Thrones,” where she played the ruthless Ellaria Sand, the paramour of Oberyn Martel; “Luther” (BBC), where she played humanitarian lawyer Zoe, whose grace contrasts with her explosive detective husband (Idris Elba); “Silk” (BBC), “Rome” (HBO), “Human Target” (Fox), “Paranoid” (Netflix), the Emmy Award-nominated drama, “Patrick Melrose” (Showtime/Sky Atlantic), starring Benedict Cumberbatch, and “This Way Up” (Channel 4 and Hulu).
She is a member of Musical Youth Theatre Company and graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London, in 1995. Raised in an arty home by her Swiss mother and Indian father.“My dad wasn’t keen on me having an acting career,” she tells The Guardian adding, “he’d just throw at me, ‘You should be a doctor.’ Utterly ludicrous. I was crap at science.”
She is probably best known for her debut in Mira Nair’s “Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love,” (1996) and Gurinder Chadha’s Bollywood Austen makeover “Bride & Prejudice” (2004) opposite Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai. Varma was funny in a matching Burberry cap and bikini in “Bride and Prejudice”, playing the aloof Caroline Bingley to the hilt. She also played the role of Piety Breakspear in the Amazon original series, “Carnival Row,” starring Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne. Varma, a method actress, also appeared as Shami Chakrabarti in the thriller, “Official Secrets,” with Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes, Matthew Goode and Matt Smith. She has a prolific theater career as well including Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronicus” (Globe Theatre), “Man and Superman,” “Othello,” “Twelfth Night,” “The Vortex,” “Dance of Death,” and “Privates on Parade,” among others. She lives with her husband, actor Colin Tierney and their daughter Evelyn, in Hornsey, North London.