Freema Agyeman

Freema Agyeman, whose father is Ghanaian, played Martha Jones, the Doctor's companion in Doctor Who, and later Dr Helen Sharpe in NBC's New Amsterdam from 2018 to 2023.

Hackney upbringing

She was born Frema Agyeman in Hackney, east London, on 20 March 1979. Her father, Osei Agyeman, is Ghanaian and her mother, Azar Azizian-Kohan, is Iranian; they divorced when she was young. She has an older sister and a younger brother and grew up a practising Catholic. She went to Our Lady's Convent RC High School in Stamford Hill, the Anna Scher Theatre School and Middlesex University, where she graduated in performing arts and drama in 2000, and in 1998 spent time on a theatre course in Virginia. She added an "e" to her first name to help with pronunciation.

Screen

She was Martha Jones from 2007 to 2010 and in Torchwood (2008), Tattycoram in Little Dorrit, prosecutor Alesha Phillips in Law & Order: UK (2009 to 2012), Larissa Loughlin in The Carrie Diaries, and Amanita Caplan in Netflix's Sense8 (2015 to 2018). On the big screen she has appeared in The Matrix Resurrections (2021), the horror comedy Eat Locals (2017) and North v South (2015).