Entertainment

Ambika Mod: 'Brown women have to work ten times harder' for roles

August 11, 2025 1:20 pm

[Source: Daily Mail]

Ambika Mod has doubled down on her opinion that she and her One Day co-star Leo Woodall “weren’t treated the same”, with the caliber of roles they landed after the show’s success.

The pair starred as lovers in the hit Netflix show – but in the months that followed, many of her fans on social media pointed out the differences between her and Woodall’s career trajectories.

After One Day, Leo notably landed a role in Tony, A24’s Anthony Bourdain biopic.

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One penned on X at the time: “It’s quite sad to see that despite being in incredibly popular, high-performing shows, the POC women are never booked as much as their white counterparts”.

Ambika subsequently said in an interview: “We just don’t get treated the same at all”, something which she reiterated in an interview with The Times this Sunday.

Speaking of, if she regretted her remarks, she explained: “Not really. I mean, it’s the truth!”

“This is nothing I’ve not said to Leo’s face, by the way… Obviously, it’s not personal. It’s just the industry and the way that our society works.”

“If you’re brown, if you’re a woman, if you don’t have any connections, you do just have to work ten times harder to get half as far. That’s sadly a reality of it.”

Ambika and Leo were praised by fans when they starred in Netflix’s One Day last year, which was based on the novel of the same name by David Nicholls.

One Day follows the story of Emma and Dexter after meeting on the final night at Edinburgh University and the next 20 years of their lives on the same date, July 15.

The two graduates become integral to each other’s lives with a series of ‘will they, won’t they’ moments and obstacles in the path of a possible romance.

The Daily Mail revealed Ambika originally turned down the role of Emma Morley after the star explained she found it was a ‘massive, massive undertaking’ given Emma was previously played by Anne Hathaway, 41, in the 2011 adaptation.

She said, “It was definitely originally written as white and previously played by a white actress. I’m really excited to bring something new to the role, I hope that young women who don’t see themselves on screen that often see that it’s possible.”

Ambika admitted she wouldn’t have landed the role 10 years ago due to her skin colour, saying: “I’m very different to Anne Hathaway, so I was never worried about that. Just the fact that I’m not white and I’m getting to play Emma.

“I don’t think that would have happened ten years ago. That in itself is a way to modernise the story.”

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