Back in 2011, Mandip Gill was an aspiring actor who had dabbled in theatre and was struggling to break into TV. Down on her luck, she took a notebook and drew a picture of a cheque for £5,000. A few weeks later, she was offered a part on Hollyoaks. She’s convinced she managed to manifest her breakthrough role on Channel 4’s teen soap. “In my head, the only way I was getting paid was from acting,” she confides as we sit down by the Thames in Canary Wharf, London, gleaming skyscrapers everywhere. She still has that notebook, now crammed with other goals, each one ticked off.
One of those was to play a police officer, which she managed in 2018 – though not in the way you might have expected. As Yasmin Khan, probationary officer from Sheffield and one of the faithful companions in Doctor Who, she has battled giant spiders, Cybermen and Daleks alongside Jodie Whittaker’s Time Lord. That’s all going to end later this year in an autumn special that will celebrate 100 years of the BBC. Gill will be leaving, too, when Whittaker finally bows out. “It’s been the best experience,” she says. “I had the time of my life.”
It’s a mild spring evening, but Gill is dressed in a black hoodie, black flared trousers and a furry black and brown coat that looks like a cosy draughts board. She is makeup free, a gold stud in her nose. The 34-year-old actor, who was born in Leeds to a Sikh family, has an infectious warmth that draws you in like a hug. She is fun and feisty, chatting a mile a minute, racing to get her thoughts out.
