Icon of stage and screen, Indira Varma, beams when talking about The Other Bennet Sister, her latest television show that’s been a smash hit on both sides of the Atlantic. “It was such a joyful experience working with a female led team,” she says of the series, which re-imagines the life of Mary Bennett from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. “It was hugely empowering to be on set with a cast and crew made up of so many incredible women.”
Varma’s standout performance as the kind and compassionate Mrs Gardiner has been praised by fans and critics alike and comes at a time when the actor is busier than ever. After filming on the series ended, she flew straight to Budapest – where she’s talking from today – to film Dune: Prophecy, season two of the hit fantasy prequel series. An exciting role in the second season of The Night Manager followed, as did a lead role in ITV thriller Coldwater alongside Andrew Lincoln, who she knew from her teenage years in Bath: both went to the same local musical theatre school.
Before this, Varma appeared in both the Game of Thrones and Star Wars universes (in Disney’s Obi Wan Kenobi for the latter) and performed in some of the biggest stage roles of her career to date. She played Lady Macbeth alongside Ralph Fiennes then Jocasta in Oedipus with Rami Malek. She won an Olivier in 2019 for her role as Liz Essendine in Noël Coward’s Present Laughter and there’s been starring roles in plays from Shakespeare, Chekov and Shaw – plus many more along the way.
Varma, 52, says The Other Bennet sister has been one of the best productions she has ever worked on, describing it as “a really happy, collaborative atmosphere” on set. She says it was “a dream” to star alongside a female lead too. “I’ve spent so many years supporting male leads in my work so supporting the hugely talented Ella Bruccoleri, who plays Mary, was a joy.” Varma began her career in 1996, straight out of RADA, and remembers a time when productions were male-dominated and auditions for women were misogynistic. “At auditions, there were only two women. You were sort of always pitted against one another,” she recalls.
There was another layer of discrimination at the time too, Varma says, who has Indian-Swiss heritage. “When I first started out, I didn’t get cast in things. Sometimes, it was because they didn’t want someone who was Brown, and then other times, they saw me as not being vulnerable enough.” At the time, Varma says, women had to look and behave in a certain way: strong, assured women were frequently frowned upon. “I think 20, 25 years ago, that ingénue prototype we saw everywhere was always blonde and petite, and a little bit vulnerable. I think it has changed partly because more women are now writing things.”
The Other Bennet sister is based on the best-selling book by Janice Hadlow and was adapted for the screen by Sarah Quintrell. With lead direction from Jennifer Sheridan and the female cast given most screen time, it felt like a much-needed step forward, Varma says. “There are more women in positions of power making decisions showing that women are not just victim, witch, harridan, mother, nurturer, boss woman now. We can fit all of those. The pendulum is swinging back.”
Indeed, The Other Bennet Sister is a warning about the dangers of stereotyping women, and judging them for who they want to be. Mary, the “bookish” sister of Elizabeth and Jane Bennett, is intelligent and has dreams of being a governess. Marriage is not at the forefront of her mind, much to the chagrin of her mother, played here by Gavin and Stacey star Ruth Jones. Mrs Bennett often reflects the patriarchal views of the time onto her daughter. Varma’s Mrs Gardiner meanwhile offers an alternative view.
“With the sometimes toxic influence social media can have on people – where we are constantly being bombarded with images of what we should be doing, wearing, looking like or even dating – having the courage to be yourself feels vital.”
“In this interpretation, she’s a little bit trampled by her mother,” Varma explains. “Mrs Gardiner takes her into their fold in London. She introduces her to a more diverse world. She encourages her and it’s a relationship where they are equals.” In a London setting away from her oppressive mother, Mary thrives. “I like how Mr and Mrs Gardiner show Mary a healthy, alternate version of what marriage can be compared with Mr and Mrs Bennet.
Varma, who jokes that this was a big change from the usual “malevolent” characters she gets cast as, seems the perfect choice for playing Mrs Gardiner, showing similar warmth and gregariousness as her character when we talk. She is frequently self-effacing and humorous and thoughtful and reflective about her work. She also has a fierce sense of social justice.
“In the Gardiner family, everyone is valued, which is how it should be,” she says, those values clearly shining through. “I love that Mrs Gardiner encourages Mary to develop her own tastes and sense of self regardless of what others might think of them.” Varma says despite being set in the 1800s, it has many parallels with today with Mary feeling “very relatable.” She continues: “With the sometimes toxic influence social media can have on people – where we are constantly being bombarded with images of what we should be doing, wearing, looking like or even dating – having the courage to be yourself feels vital.”
Varma says she is part of a WhatsApp group with other actresses who support one another at a time when social media toxicity is worse than ever. “There is so much negativity on there,” Varma says. “Every now and again you’ll get some hate and you’re like ‘why are you wasting your time telling me how much you hate my work or how I look?!’ It’s laughable. Why would I care about your opinion?!” Varma says she enjoys using it to lift friends, colleagues and fellow female actors – in a direct riposte to those auditions of yesteryear.
“When love is shared on there, that’s when it can really work,” Varma says. “Post #MeToo, women have gone: ‘Come on, we need each other’. It’s about the we, the us, together. I want you to do well. And that makes me happy. We need so much more of that.”
“I don’t believe politicians anymore. I think they’re just power hungry. I don’t think they have the best interests of the individual or society and they’re out of touch most of the time. For me, it comes back to community…we need to reach out to people.”
Varma says people and communities need to start talking to one another again to directly counter the hate and division we’re seeing both on and offline. “I get a bit overwhelmed by it all,” she admits. “I don’t believe politicians anymore. I think they’re just power hungry. I don’t think they have the best interests of the individual or society and they’re out of touch most of the time. For me, it comes back to community and that’s why Andy Burnham is so great I think,” she says of Manchester’s Mayor who could soon be our next Prime Minister. “He’s looking at a smaller place as a whole.”
She continues: “If we could just come back to talking, being in front of someone and having a conversation – basically talking to our neighbours again – whoever they might be. Just not living in a phone bubble. We need to reach out to people in a smaller way. It might make us all realise that we’re all just human.”
Varma says art has a big part to play in the healing of such divisions, but she worries how the message will get to people at a time when theatre tickets, for example, are so extortionate. The actress, who grew up in a modest home in Bath with artistic parents, is passionate about the arts being for everyone. “Hopefully, the arts will continue to reflect, inspire and challenge. But you don’t always want to preach to the converted, to the choir. You want to reach people who it should be spoken to.
“On stage, I wish there were less star casting,” she says, of theatre’s current obsession with putting A-listers on the stage – complete with pricing to match. “Using professionals is different from using a movie star. I wish we could sort of get back to a place where people in the old days went to see plays just to see the play, not because there was a movie or TV star in it. The price of tickets is just going crazy and that’s not right. We’re alienating our audiences again…art has become a luxury for a lot of people. It’s been cut out of schools too. Most of us can’t afford to go to the theatre.”
It comes back, Varma says, to making changes, to moving the needle whether it be in gender, class or race, to ensure everyone can be a part of the arts. A few years ago, Varma admits she “never thought I’d ever do a period drama,” after watching “all-white period dramas for years.” She continues: “In Britain, period dramas do very well. We rely on it a lot – I think it is our calling card internationally. But I was like, ‘where in this is there room for me, someone who is mixed?’”
“The price of [theatre] tickets is going crazy and that’s not right. We’re alienating our audiences again…art has become a luxury for a lot of people.”
She says she was “thrilled” when Netflix’s Bridgerton finally came along in 2020. “It changed the face of period dramas on television.” Before this, she recalls a fellow cast member on a show she was working with in 2010 asking her why she wasn’t in Game of Thrones. Varma had starred in BBC and HBO drama Rome which as she says herself, “was a kind of precursor to Thrones.” Varma decided to email someone on Thrones and ask the question her colleague, Mark Valley, has asked: why wasn’t she in the show?
They got back to her and said they only had a small part, certain she wouldn’t be interested. “I said to them, ‘try me,’” she laughs. “It wasn’t like I was getting big parts anywhere else at the time.” She auditioned for the show and got the part of Ellaria, alongside Pedro Pascal’s Oberyn Martell.
“I’m always surprised at how much of an impact Ellaria had on people,” she reflects now. “It was also great working with Pedro because he’s a theatre man. We just got on well and had a laugh. It kind of rocketed him into stardom, mega stardom, as he deserves. It was a privilege to work on a set like that.”
She is philosophical now that the part didn’t “change” her career “the way it will have done from the people who were in it beginning to end,” but is happy she is still getting offered “meaty” parts in abundance on stage. She says she still wants to match this on screen, something she feels can sometimes elude her. “I’m still sort of at the rock face, chipping away,” she explains. “Which is why I keep going back to theatre because I feel like I am getting the chunky, very nuanced roles on stage. I’m hoping that will be reflected on camera.”
While her roles over the last year alone show how Varma can go toe-to-toe with the best of them on screen, she says she still feels “imposter syndrome” frequently. “It’s that way all the bloody time,” she laughs. “But I think culturally in society at the moment, there’s been this pressure – like if you’re a runner, you should be running marathons. If you paint, you should be selling your work, exhibiting it in the best galleries – nothing is for the fun of it anymore,” she ponders.
“A friend of mine, years ago, said to me on my first American job, ‘never wait for men to buy you jewellery,’ and so every job, if it’s a nicely paid job, I’ll buy myself a nice piece of jewellery.”
“I think the more courage I have to fail at any of it, the better…just being in the moment and trying, if you reach for something and you don’t reach that thing, but you find something else – then that’s okay. I think that is how we should all be living.”
When away from acting, Varma is an avid reader (she judged the women’s 2024 prize for fiction), loves Pilates and yoga, going to the theatre – “of course!” – she laughs, and treating herself to a special piece of jewellery when she wraps on a production. “A friend of mine, years ago, said to me on my first American job, ‘never wait for men to buy you jewellery’, and so every job, if it’s a nicely paid job, I’ll buy myself a piece of jewellery.”
She longs to own a Cartier ‘Tank’ watch, she says, but in the meantime, loves buying sustainable jewellery from young designers. Recently, she bought some from a student at St Martin’s Central College in London, Jihyo Kim, who she raves about. “They were made with 100% bio-based material, including coffee grounds. I bought another made from a crushed-up shell. They’re modern, interesting shapes and very different.” She also loves wearing jewellery from her parents, which she says has huge sentimental value for her. “It always makes me think of them.”
As for what’s next, expect another breathless few years from Varma. “I’d like to do something indie, maybe something experimental,” she reveals. She still marvels at what she does. “I’m very lucky because this is my hobby – when you love what you do, you never do a day’s work,” she smiles, as the adage goes. “I truly love what I do.”
