Leading ladies

Not so long ago, South Asians were relegated to appearing in either blinkand-you-miss-it bits in mainstream cinema or indie films based on stories of the diaspora that demanded a brown actor. In playing beyond stereotypes, Amita Suman, Anjana Vasan, Ambika Mod and Ritu Arya are rewriting the recipe for success.

- SADAF SHAIKH

WHEN AMITA SUMAN flips her hair in front of her shoulder during our conversation, I momentarily lose track of my question. Her screen is tilted low and her mane unfurls like a scroll beyond her Zoom tile. "I thought you wore a wig while playing Inej," I grumble, my own hair slick with oil that probably won't do anything for my shoulder-length curls. "It's real," she grins, swishing her tresses this way and that. "I wanted to change it up before I auditioned for Inej. Some inner voice told me I shouldn't cut it and I'm so glad I listened."

Cascading locks aren't the only feature Suman shares with Inej Ghafa, the deadly but moralistic spy she plays in the fantasy Netflix series Shadow and Bone (2021-2023). Growing up in Bhedihari, a village in Nepal where the locals lived in tin houses, the only electrical device Suman was familiar with was a bulb. One day, a small black-and-white television appeared in her house. Her child's brain couldn't comprehend that the people in front of her eyes weren't miniatures living inside the TV. "It made me realise that's where I wanted to be because it felt like freedom was in that little box."When Suman was seven and her family moved to Brighton, she understood that her route to television was acting. Drama school and a couple of fantasy projects later, she found herself on the set of Shadow and Bone in Inej's breeches and hooded tunic. "That's when the similarities struck," Suman explains. "Inej was taken from her home to a new place where she learned to thrive. I also moved to the UK from Nepal and had to adapt in a very different way." For the 26-year-old, it was her soul connection to the character that really elevated her performance. "Moving countries without knowing how to read, write or speak the language requires having faith in yourself. Inej helped me acknowledge that I did."