Indira Varma
Indira Anne Varma (born 27 September 1973) is a British actress and narrator. Her film debut and first major role was in "". She has gone on to appear in the television series "The Canterbury Tales", "Rome", "Luther", "Human Target", and "Game of Thrones" (playing Ellaria Sand). In September 2016 she began starring in the ITV/Netflix series "Paranoid" as DS Nina Suresh. She also stars in the Amazon Prime series "Carnival Row". Early life. Varma was raised in Bath, Somerset, the only child of an Indian father and a Swiss mother who was of part Genoese Italian descent . She was a member of Musical Youth Theatre Company and graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London, in 1995. Career. Varma, a method actress, has had a number of television and film roles, including "" in 1996, "Jinnah" in 1998, and "Bride and Prejudice" in 2004, and the young Roman wife Niobe during the 2005 first season of BBC/HBO's historical drama series "Rome". Her character appeared briefly in the second season of the award-winning series when it aired on 14 January 2007. In 2006, she played Suzie Costello in the first and eighth episodes , "Everything Changes" and "They Keep Killing Suzie", of BBC Three's science-fiction drama series "Torchwood". She appeared as Dr Adrienne Holland in the CBS medical drama "3 lbs" which premiered on 14 November 2006 and was cancelled on 30 November 2006 due to poor ratings. Varma guest starred in the fourth-season premiere of hit US detective drama "Bones" as Scotland Yard Inspector Cate Pritchard. She also played the role of Zoe Luther in the first series of the BBC drama "Luther". Varma played the role of Ilsa Pucci in the second season of the Fox series "Human Target  until the show was cancelled on 10 May 2011. In 2014, Varma was cast as Ellaria Sand, the paramour of Oberyn Martell in season 4 of the HBO series Game of Thrones". She played the role through season 7. She lent her voice to the Circle mage Vivienne, in the 2014 role-playing video game "". Later on, she also gave her voice to Katherine Proudmoore in "", one of the most recent expansion in the MMO role-playing game "World of Warcraft". In 2016, she played the lead role of DC Nina Suresh in the eight-episode British television drama "Paranoid , streamed worldwide on Netflix. Varma portrays a reform-minded corrections official in the 2020 ABC legal drama For Life", and will star in the upcoming "Obi-Wan Kenobi" series for Disney+, as well as "". Theatre. In 1997, Varma played Bianca in Shakespeare's "Othello" at the National Theatre, London. In 2000 to 2001, she appeared in Harold Pinter and Di Trevis's NT stage adaptation of Pinter's "The Proust Screenplay", "Remembrance of Things Past", based on "", by Marcel Proust. In the summer of 2001, she played Gila in "One for the Road", by Harold Pinter, at Lincoln Center for  the Performing Arts in New York City. In 2002, she played Sasha Lebedieff in "Ivanov" by Anton Chekhov at the National Theatre and Bunty Mainwaring in "The Vortex" by Noël Coward at the Donmar Theatre, London. In 2004, she played Sabina in "The Skin of Our Teeth" by Thornton Wilder at the Young Vic Theatre Theatre, London. In 2008, she played Nadia Baliye in "The Vertical Hour" by David Hare at the Royal Court Theatre London. In 2009, she played Olivia in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" with Donmar West End at Wyndham's Theatre, London. In 2012, she played Jessica  in Terry Johnson's "Hysteria" at the Theatre Royal, Bath. In 2013 she played Miss Cutts in "The Hothouse" by Harold Pinter in the Trafalgar Transformed season at Trafalgar Studios. In 2014, Varma played Tamora, Queen of the Goths, in Lucy Bailey's "gore-fest" production of "Titus Andronicus" at Shakespeare's Globe. In 2015, she appeared alongside Ralph Fiennes in George Bernard Shaw's "Man and Superman" at the National Theatre. In 2020, pre-lockdown, she starred in Chekhov's "The Seagull" as Irina alongside "Game of Thrones" co-star Emilia Clarke at the Playhouse Theatre. Her 2019 performance  in "Present Laughter" at The Old Vic theatre earned Varma an Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Personal life. Varma and her husband Colin Tierney live with their daughter Evelyn in Hornsey, North London. She works with the charity Karma Nirvana, supporting women and girls who have experienced honour based abuse.