Born: 12th May 1992 (as Varada Sethumadhavan)

Varada Sethumadhavan was born in Kerala, India; she has a twin sister called Abhaya. While she was still a child, her family relocated to Tyne and Wear, England. Sethumadhavan joined the National Youth Theatre and later attended the Identity School of Acting in London, having also studied veterinary medicine and physiology at the University of Bristol. Adopting an abbreviated form of her surname for professional purposes, Sethu's first professional acting role came in the 2010 short film Impressions. A year later, she was cast in the feature-length crime drama Sket. Sethu's television debut came in 2015, in an episode of Doctors. In 2016, she took a role in a telefilm adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream, spearheaded by former Doctor Who executive producer Russell T Davies. Sethu soon became a regular presence on the small screen, earning credits for her work on the likes of Doctor Foster, Hard Sun and Hanna, and then a regular role on Strike Back. She added two significant franchises to her resume in 2022, with the blockbuster movie sequel Jurassic World Dominion and the Star Wars television spin-off Andor. In 2024, with Davies having returned to Doctor Who, it was announced that Sethu would be joining the programme's cast as a new companion to Ncuti Gatwa's Fifteenth Doctor.