Later, the emphasis on comedy became a problem: Couldn’t there be some weighty issues like, say, an arranged marriage? Others would have preferred something a little bit less action and more art house. Very early on, before such suggestions became less acceptable to make, potential financiers would ask if she could make the central family a white one. Manzoor started writing “Polite Society” around 10 years ago but kept running into obstacles as she tried to get the project off the ground. (Because of scheduling conflicts, the part was recast when the short became the series “We Are Lady Parts,” which streams on Peacock in the United States Manzoor is currently writing Season 2.) I love that scene for that reason.”Īrya was familiar with Manzoor’s sensibility because they had worked together before, most notably on the 14-minute comedy “Lady Parts,” which Manzoor made for Channel 4 in 2018 and in which Arya played the lead singer of the short film’s titular punk band, a raucous quartet of Muslim women.

“Which is why it’s satisfying when you see people actually eating. “I love watching people eat, but onscreen they are often sort of playing around with their food because of the amount of takes they have to do,” she said in a joint chat with Kansara. When Ria, who usually has no time for “girlie” accouterments, is forced to endure a wax, the scene is shot like a dramatic interrogation in an early James Bond movie - “but with this kind of villain Auntie character,” Manzoor said, referring to Ria’s nemesis, played by Nimra Bucha.įor Arya (best known as Lila Pitts in the Netflix series “The Umbrella Academy”), being encouraged to chomp was a refreshing change from what she usually sees in movies or on television.

The plot moves at a fast clip peppered with a lot of action, which is nearly always layered with rambunctious comedy. And Ria is just a crazy kid she doesn’t really stop.” It was intense because there was so much to get through. “I was cast around six, seven weeks before we started the shoot, so that’s the time I had to learn as many of the stunts and the fight choreography. “I have no prior martial arts experience or anything like that,” Kansara said in a video chat. (She idolizes Eunice Huthart, a real-life Liverpudlian with extensive experience as a Hollywood stunt double.) And so the actress portraying her, Priya Kansara, had to get with the program - fast.

In the film, Ria, the youngest in a British Pakistani family, attends high school while training hard to fulfill her dream of becoming a stuntwoman.

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