Rise to Fame
Turning down a training contract at Slaughter and May to attend drama school, without telling her parents until after she was accepted, was either very bold or very reckless. The bet paid off slowly: years of bit parts in British television before landing a humanoid robot in Humans who develops self-awareness, which got people paying attention. Crazy Rich Asians in 2018 was the bigger break, and she passed on the lead to play the more complex Astrid Leong-Teo. The film pulled $239 million globally, and everyone who'd dismissed her as a supporting player had to reconsider.
In the Spotlight
Playing two separate MCU characters, Minn-Erva in Captain Marvel and then Sersi in Eternals, is the kind of lateral move that usually only happens when a studio really wants to keep you around. Eternals crossed $402 million worldwide despite mixed reviews. She co-founded Time's Up UK and launched #StopESEAHate amid COVID-era anti-Asian violence in the UK. Her thriller Josephine premiered at Sundance 2026, which she produced. She's building a production footprint that suggests she doesn't intend to stay only on the talent side of the camera.
Side Notes
A classically trained violinist who attained the ABRSM diploma while still in school, she then read jurisprudence at Oxford before turning down a training contract at Slaughter and May, an elite London law firm. She's said the degree had an unexpected side effect: memorizing thousands of legal cases left her unusually good at learning scripts. While modeling to fund drama school, she appeared on Series 1 of Project Catwalk, the UK's version of Project Runway. The jump from runway to robot to Marvel superhero is, in retrospect, a very specific kind of ambition.