“I want to keep working until I drop. I want the work to get more and more challenging. I would like to work with the best people in the business. I’m not bothered about awards. I would happily live the rest of my career under a rock if under that rock I was collaborating with incredible artists.” Hannah Khalique-Brown is ambitious. Not that she has eyes on world domination, just being the best artist she can be doing rewarding work with other high level creatives. And she has reason to keep wanting more.
It’s been a rapid ascent for the Birmingham-born star. The daughter of a surgeon and barrister, she grew up in an affluent area near the iconic Edgbaston Cricket Ground with dreams of the arts in far away London. But success rolled around at speed. Shortly after graduating from King’s College London, she bagged a stint on the beloved British daytime soap, Doctors, and secured the lead role in The Undeclared War quickly after.
From this high-profile launching off point, there was a small but eye-catching role in the cultural phenomenon that was 2023’s Barbie, a stunning turn in the critically acclaimed Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, and a notable appearance in Netflix’s popular spy thriller, Black Doves. Oh, and she sings in the jazz fusion band, Big Sky Orchestra, alongside her husband and guitarist, Benedict Mann. It’s been, what you could say, a busy few years.
But Khalique-Brown, speaking from her home in London with a fresh mug of matcha, would not have it any other way. “Acting is like oxygen to me. I find it thrilling. I just love it,” she says with enthusiasm reverberating out of her voice and it shows in the recently premiered second season of The Undeclared War, a techy spy thriller from Channel 4 that initially debuted in 2022, but has had a prolonged wait for a follow-up. Initially featuring a cast of British all-stars including Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance and Adrian Lester, at the centre of it all was Khalique-Brown, who at the point she was cast, had only appeared in seven episodes of Doctors. But she is the emotional and thematic core of the show.
“Acting is like oxygen to me. I find it thrilling. I just love it”
In The Undeclared War, she plays Saara Parvin, a student on a placement at GCHQ who finds herself in the middle of an intricate game of cyberwarfare as conflict between Britain and Russia beckons. Season two picks up immediately where the first ends with a one-take scene as the reality of a massive allegedly Russian hack takes hold. Despite the relatively long period between seasons, Khalique-Brown relished the return to Saara.
“I loved playing Saara so much the first time. I honestly missed her. A bit of her has lived on in different characters and she hums around in the background of my soul. Even though we are very different people,” she explains. “I was a little bit nervous because I’d never reprised a role before. I was like ‘I don’t know how this works’, ‘will I remember how to be her?’ But as soon as I was there, it all came back. It’s like putting on an old pair of shoes.”
The second season of the show aired earlier this summer and it is now showing in America on Peacock giving Khalique-Brown the chance to digest the response from fans and critics. But she is adamant about ignoring reviews: “I don’t pay attention to reaction or how it’s received. I actively avoid it. If I did pay attention, I’d go insane. I had an experience reading reviews and they were all good reviews but it still fucked with me. I shouldn’t know what people think.” She admits that she doesn’t find the outside feedback helpful even when she has received wildly positive reviews for her performances in The Undeclared War and Wolf Hall. “I’ve had people screenshot nice quotes from a newspaper and they send it to me because they think I want to hear it and then I start spiralling. It’s just weird.”
Actors have special parts that define their lives and careers. Though they are often hesitant to admit it, they have favoured roles. Khalique-Brown has no such politeness about how important Saara and The Undeclared War are to her: “She will always be an incredibly special part and always hold a special place in my heart, not just for the fact she gave me the beginning of my career but also because the experience was so phenomenal. She will always be a marker of huge change in my life.”
“I don’t pay attention to reaction or how it’s received. I actively avoid it. If I did pay attention, I’d go insane.“
The Undeclared War also allowed Khalique-Brown to foster a sparkling creative relationship with Mark Rylance. After the two shared the screen on season one, they were later reunited on Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light with Khalique-Brown playing a nun and the illegitimate daughter of Cardinal Wolsey. In a particularly intense scene, she faces off with Rylance’s Thomas Cromwell in a moment that leaves the statesman shaken. It’s an acting tour de force.
“It was incredible working with Mark. It’s hard to beat working with him,” she gushes before adding: “I can feel a dramatic spark when I spar with Mark in a scene. On Wolf Hall, when we got on set it was electric. It was one of the most incredible moments of my life. We were at Gloucester Abbey and Mark and I wanted to be separate and couldn’t be near each other until filming started because it was so intense.
“I was walking around in my period accurate silk nun habit with my music on listening to choral monk music and pacing up and down. When we did the scene it was like sitting on top of a volcano that was about to burst. It was a completely singular experience. Mark was crying and holding my hands and said ‘you’re so wonderful to play with’ which is the most Mark thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I can feel a dramatic spark when I spar with Mark in a scene. On Wolf Hall, when we got on set it was electric.”
On the opposite end of the spectrum is Barbie; about as different to Wolf Hall and The Undeclared War as you can possibly get. With glitzy costumes, meta comedy and all-out dance numbers, the film broke box-office records in 2023 as part of the ‘Barbenheimer‘ craze with Khalique-Brown portraying the controversial Growing Up Skipper, complete with inflatable bra. While a very different type of experience to the rigor of Wolf Hall, Khalique-Brown found it nonetheless thrilling. “Barbie was amazing. The set was incredible, everything was handmade and real size. It was like living in Barbie World. Greta Gerwig was amazing to work with and I’d love to work with her again. Her way of being on set is really unique and incredible and such a creatively rich environment.”
While ‘Barbiecore’ bling became an aesthetic as a result of the film’s success Khalique-Brown prefers jewellery with a personal touch: “My favourite pieces are probably the more sentimental or meaningful ones – my wedding and engagement rings from my husband, the watches my dad used to buy me once a year as a little girl which are far too small to ever wear but I keep and treasure, the Tiffany bracelet gifted by my godfather when I was a young teenager, a necklace given by a friend which I wear nearly every day, earrings bought by a cast mate as a parting gift at the end of a play last year…little pieces of love.”
“My favourite pieces are probably the more sentimental or meaningful ones – my wedding and engagement rings from my husband”
As for the future, Khalique-Brown is giddily excited about something she is working on at the moment that is absolutely not allowed to talk about. And with The Undeclared War season two ending with both a resolution and a twist, it feels like a third run is on the horizon.
While Khalique-Brown admits actors are the last to find out the fate of a show, she is hopeful this is not yet the end of Saara’s story. “We’ve chatted to the writers and they’d love to do season three, there’s loads of story scope and loads of willing. I would love it to go on.”
CREDITS
Photographer: Jemima Marriott
Hair: Louis Bryne
Jewellery: Cartier
Clothes: Hannah Khalique-Brown
Writer: Sam Moore
Editor in Chief: Ian Thorley
Deputy Editor: Kim Parker
Managing Editor/Online: Elizabeth Aubrey
Cover Design: Ash Gibson
Social Media: Lily Thorley
With special thanks to Satellite414Screen
