I remember sitting in school and thinking, 'I don't know why I'm here, because I know I'm going to act and I know I'm going to America.'

Sometimes my ethnicity is relevant, other times not. I definitely get the best of both worlds.

I had a dialect coach to get an American accent, and then another dialect coach to come off it a bit. There is something deep and mysterious in the voice when it isn't too high-pitched American.

I feel like I have one foot in New York, one foot in London and one foot in India. But it's important to me to invest time with family.

Since I was a baby my goal was to be on TV because film was just impossible - you never got any Asian women in Western cinema. I grew up wanting to be in 'East-Enders' because film wasn't even a dream. The community were very much like, 'How can you want to act? It's such a low-class profession.

You have this impression from England that New Yorkers can be quite aggressive, but certainly the people that I've bumped into and the friends I've made here don't seem that way. Just walking down the street and asking for directions, people seem to be very helpful and happy to help.

I like to do new things, so I always take on roles that I feel will keep me on my toes. I never want to pigeon myself, so I always like to surprise myself. I believe in versatility and so I would play anything as long as it was a challenge.