Doctor Who’s Mandip Gill hits out at being branded a ‘liability’ as a Northern, Asian woman
DOCTOR Who actress Mandip Gill has hits out at being branded a 'liability' as a Northern, Asian woman.
The 32-year-old, who plays the Doctor's sidekick Yasmin Khan, said one of the biggest challenges she faces when auditioning is getting casting directors to overcome her Leeds accent.
She told the : "I think what I've struggled [with] – more than being Asian and being a woman, because they're difficult in themselves – is being Northern.
Discussing the audition process at beginning of her career, she added: "As soon as I opened my mouth the amount of times people have gone, 'Oh God, you’re Northern'.
"That sort of ruined it for them. I can do the accent but because I'm not from [London] you're seen as a liability."
The former Hollyoaks star joined the Tardis gang in 2018, having previously also had roles in Casualty, Cuckoo and Good Karma Hospital.
When she joined the show as the junior police officer, she said at the time: "I am over the moon to be joining the Doctor Who family.
"This is an iconic show with an amazing fanbase and I look forward to everything that brings."
Elsewhere, the BBC sci-fi hit's next episode looks to be one of its most terrifying instalments to date.
Titled The Haunting of Villa Diodati, a first look teaser clip sees Jodie Whittaker and the gang travel back in time to 1816.
They pay a visit to the esteemed poet and politician Lord Byron and the Shelleys, where they spend the night exchanging ghost stories of nightmarish proportions.
When we say the tales jump off of the page, we mean that in the most literal senses, as a range of famous monsters crash the party.
The Doctor says in the footage: "How about writing the most gruesome, spine-chilling ghost story of all time?
Next, Lord Byron reads aloud the title of a creepy-looking book: The Tales of the Dead.
Literature buffs will know that 1816 is when Lord Byron, John William Polidori, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Claire Clairmont spent the night together at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva.
Finding themselves trapped inside together by three days of heavy rain, the group decided to pass the time by sharing ghost stories, one of which was the aforementioned The Tales of the Dead.
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It was this very meeting that many have claimed inspired Mary Shelley to subsequently write Frankenstein and Polidor to pen The Vampyre – the first ever romantic vampire novel.
With that in mind, it seems very likely that The Doctor will be grappling with the undead in many grisly forms.
Doctor Who continues on Sunday at 7:10pm on BBC One and will be available to stream on iPlayer.