There are so many gorgeous lines in the series. Which was the most poignant for you?

In Episode 14, there’s the speech where she’s coming down from Arthur’s Seat [and Emma says she had a really nice time that she’ll always remember and that “me and you, we’ll just be friends”]. I remember when I read it in the script I didn’t know what to do with it. It felt very significant, and it’s the key that unlocks so much and reframes their whole friendship – Emma is the reason they stay in touch. I felt a massive responsibility, but I remember thinking: just say it like you genuinely want to reassure him. She says: “I’m not going to be a footnote in the story of your life” and the music swells. That bit for me, when I watched it, just…. tears!

You just went into the Emma Morley accent when you said that! Let’s talk about how you perfected that Leeds accent…

I got the part very much not being able to do the accent. When I got offered it, I went straight into sessions with my dialect coach Natalie, three session a week, an hour and a half, drilling all the sounds, and then we just tapered it to come up with an accent that felt unique to Emma. It’s all well and good learning a very authentic accent from a place but accents are so experiential, once we found that, then something clicked. When you meet Emma, she’s been at Edinburgh for four years and surrounded by southerners. And then we also faded the accent as the series went on, because she’s been living in London. It’s very subtle.

I know you were a huge fan of the book before the show – can you remember what drew you to it?

It’s hard to say because I was 13 or 14, and it is not a book for a 13- or 14-year-old. You’re not going to gain anything deep or meaningful. But it was when I reread it when I was auditioning that so much of it struck me in a way that I hadn’t recalled and I felt such a kinship with Emma.

For me it’s a book about growing up and how disappointing life can be and how wide-eyed ambitions don’t often end up coming to fruition. There’s a lot about fate, and when you look back, the tiniest encounters can have a massive impact. Emma and Dexter’s meeting: their first interaction is quite unremarkable. It’s just boy meets girl and have a bit of an awkward first night together. It’s not anything to write home about, but 20 years later, and it’s the most impactful relationship either have ever had.

Are those chance encounters and patterns and connections important to you?

I’m really into that stuff, even before I did the show. I think that there’s meaning and reason to the things that happen to us in our lives. And when I see those coincidences and synchronicities, they give me hope. It might not be true, I might just be searching in the dark, but it makes me feel optimistic. I’m a very cynical person. So when those things happen, and they feel like they’re cosmic ,I choose to believe in them.

Even just the small things, like This Is Going To Hurt came out on 8 February 2022 and when I first found out that One Day was going to come out on the same day [8 February 2024] I thought: ‘everything’s going to be OK’ and this massive calm came over me. I was raised Hindu and a lot of that school of thinking comes from Hinduism and the idea that we are all connected and nothing in this life is an accident. I like to believe there’s some kind of larger system.

One Day’s Ambika Mod life lessons on confidence, boundaries and the ending of the Netflix TV show