Born: 27th September 1973 (as Indira Anne Varma)
Episodes Broadcast: 2006

Born in Bath, Somerset, Indira Varma was exposed to many types of performance during her childhood, from the choreographed dancing of her father's native India to the mime routines beloved of her parents, neither of whom spoke English as a first language. As a teenager, she acted with the Bath Youth Theatre and was an early member of the Musical Youth Theatre Company. Although her father hoped that she would go into medicine, Varma instead enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, from which she graduated in 1995. The following year, her television debut came in Crucial Tales, while director Mira Nair made her the star of the film Kama Sutra: A Tale Of Love. More movies followed, such as Jinnah with Christopher Lee, while Varma had her first major television role in Psychos. The stage would also feature prominently in her resume, including a 1997 run on Othello at the National Theatre. It was during this production that Varma began a relationship with her colleague, Colin Tierney; they would marry and have a daughter, Evelyn.

After the turn of the century, Varma's movies included Bride & Prejudice, in which the works of Jane Austen were reimagined to feature a modern Indian family, and the Sharon Stone sequel Basic Instinct 2. On television, she had a prominent role in Rome and co-starred with the future Tenth Doctor, David Tennant, in a live remake of The Quatermass Experiment. In 2006, it appeared that Varma had been cast as one of the stars of the Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood. In fact, this was a ruse to shock viewers: her character, Suzie Costello, turned out to be a villain and was killed in the series premiere, Everything Changes. Nonetheless, Varma returned in the same season's They Keep Killing Suzie. She joined the short-lived American medical drama 3 lbs shortly thereafter, and could soon be seen in other Stateside programmes like Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Bones.

During the 2010s, Varma divided her time between British and American television, such as Luther, the comic book adaptation Human Target, Game Of Thrones and This Way Up. On the silver screen, her roles came in the likes of Anna, the Ridley Scott epic Exodus: Gods And Kings, Una, and Official Secrets starring the Eleventh Doctor, Matt Smith. Varma was also an executive producer on both seasons of the historical drama Indian Summers. In 2016, she began reprising Suzie Costello for the range of Torchwood audio dramas from Big Finish Productions, starting with Moving Target. Varma remained prolific during the Twenties when For Life, The Capture, the Star Wars spin-off Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Dune: The Sisterhood were amongst her television credits. She could also be seen in the movie thriller Crisis and the blockbuster sequel Mission: Impossible -- Dead Reckoning Part One. In 2024, Varma will appear in Doctor Who as a new character, the Duchess, for an adventure opposite Ncuti Gatwa's Fifteenth Doctor.