Ayesha Dharker

Actress

Biography

Ayesha Dharker is a British actress. Ayesha was born in India in 1977. She is the daughter of Imtiaz Dharker, a noted poet, artist and documentary film-maker, and Anil Dharker, a columnist and an ex-editor of Debonair. Ayesha has connections to many places with her father hailing from India and her mother being of Scottish-Pakistani origins. Dharker made her screen debut in the 1989 Francois Villier film, Manika: Une Vie Plus Tard. Dharker subsequently went on to star in many American, French and Indian films. She has had many television roles in the UK, particularly in Cutting It and Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee, in which she co-starred with Meera Syal. Her most internationally recognised role was when she acted as Queen Jamilla, the Queen of Naboo in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002). Dharker starred in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Bombay Dreams, both in London's West End and on Broadway (2004). She also starred in The Mistress of Spices (2005). In the international award-winning film The Terrorist (1999), she played the lead character Malli; a role that earned her a nomination for the National Film Award for Best Actress in India and the Cairo Film Festival award for Best Artistic Contribution by an Actress. She was a recurring cast member of the BBC Asian Network radio serial Silver Street, playing the role of "Ambika"; she has also appeared in the episode "Planet of the Ood" of the long-running BBC sci-fi television series, Doctor Who as Solana Mercurio. She also took on the role of Tara Mandal in the British soap Coronation Street.