Ritu Arya

In Polite Society (2023), Lena has given up art school and gone to bed. Her younger sister Ria wants to be a stuntwoman and responds to Lena’s engagement by preparing for a fight. Beside Priya Kansara’s quick, indignant Ria, Arya has the quieter task of showing why Lena has stopped trying. We felt for Lena because Arya keeps her misery present beneath the jokes. Even when the comedy is rushing ahead, there is someone on screen whose unhappiness cannot be cleared up by joining in.

Her television work moved from Dr Megan Sharma in Doctors (2017) to the breakthrough as Lila Pitts in The Umbrella Academy (2020–2024). Lila is a superpowered assassin, a part that fits the recurring demand for physical assurance and unpredictability in Arya’s work. She is often cast where action, comedy and drama meet, rather than asked to stay within one genre. Her work with writer-director Nida Manzoor on Polite Society makes the quieter acting worth equal attention.

Manzoor gives the sisters different levels of energy, and Arya does not try to make Lena as immediately entertaining as Ria. That restraint matters because Lena’s unhappiness needs to be taken seriously, even when her sister is behaving absurdly. Arya gets more from the part than the writing provides, though we would not mistake that for a fully satisfying film. Kansara remains its chief attraction, and the last half hour lets an unconvincing plot take attention away from the sisters.

She plays Journalist Barbie in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie (2023) and Yasmin in the Riz Ahmed-led series Bait (2026). We recommend both, with different reservations: Barbie talks too much in its second half, while Bait leaves some supporting characters short of attention. Neither supplies as clear a reason to seek out Arya as her work with Manzoor. Her smaller part in Red Notice (2021) is another reason to want more substantial work for her. For Arya, start with Polite Society, and do not expect its plot to be as convincing as its sisters.