Indira Varma

"I feel like this is a really exciting time to sort of change the landscape of the way women are perceived. And it's really exciting to have a female director leading this and trusting that […] we will be represented in the right way, because [Deborah Chow is] on it."

―Varma on her role in Star Wars^[2]

Indira Varma is an actress who appears in Obi-Wan Kenobi as a double agent Imperial officer named Tala Durith who helps Obi-Wan and Leia Organa escape the Empire.^[1] She is known for playing Ellaria Sand in the fantasy drama series Game of Thrones (where she acts opposite fellow Star Wars actors Pedro Pascal, Jessica Henwick, Emilia Clarke, Keisha Castle-Hughes and Alexander Siddig, with Varma playing Pascal's paramour) and for starring as DS Nina Suresh in the British crime drama series Paranoid, and as Piety Breakspear in the neo-noir fantasy series Carnival Row.

On the HBO show Rome, Varma played the character Niobe, who was used as the namesake of the Star Wars character Niobi.^[3]

Biography[]

When Indira Varma was a child, she did not watch the Star Wars films because she felt like they were made "for the boys" and she felt like there was not much for her in the franchise. When Varma watched her friend and actor Pedro Pascal in The Mandalorian, she was entranced by the wit, humanity, and serialized feel of the series. This led to Varma speaking with Deborah Chow, the director of the Obi-Wan Kenobi television series, and they talked about joining the series. Varma felt like she could trust Chow's sensibilities, both to value emotion over action and to uplift female voices. When they spoke, Varma liked how Chow wanted the show to be character driven and Chow asked for her input. Varma felt like being in the show was an exciting time to change how women are perceived.^[2]

The relative uniqueness of Tala Durith made Varma feel welcome in Star Wars. Varma felt like she did not need to copy anyone because she was not reprising a character that has been seen before. She had not watched all of the Star Wars films and she believed that she did not need an encyclopedic knowledge of Star Wars to understand her character's motivations. Ewan McGregor,^[2] the actor who played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the show,^[4] was appalled by Varma's lack of knowledge and was "taking the mickey out for [her] all the time.^[2] She viewed her character as the equivalent of the French resistance. She believed that Durith understood Kenobi and saw him as a man who has given up.^[5] On March 29, 2021, Lucasfilm Ltd. confirmed Varma as a cast member of the live-action Disney+ television series Obi-Wan Kenobi.^[1]

In 2022,^[6] Varma attended a surprise premiere event at Celebration Anaheim. She thought it was really cool to be part of something that loves and includes its fan base. Varma has said that she would like to have a cameo or supporting role in the third season of The Mandalorian.^[2] Varma was interviewed for Obi-Wan Kenobi: A Jedi's Return, a documentary about the making of Obi-Wan Kenobi.^[5]