Fried's Mandeep Dhillon: 'Cast becomes like family, and I wouldn't change it for the world'

My Fried character, Amara, finds herself being forced to work at Seriously Fried Chicken to be honest. Her dad wants her to learn the value of money. She hates her job, and she’s not very good at it either!

Amara’s a nice girl deep down, she’s just a bit, well, she likes her material stuff. She’s all about nails, big fancy cars, a big house… all of that jazz.

But I think throughout the series you do see her grow. Maturity-wise. Probably more human skills if anything you know. 

Her colleague, Joe, secretly likes her. He just needs to have a bit more faith in himself though, bless him! Amara is the type of person who’d only really get with someone who’s sure of themself. Who has confidence in their own looks. And he really doesn’t. That’s probably why she sees him as so sweet. He’s a mate to her, rather than what he wants, which is a relationship.

Is that set to change? Mayyyybe! 

Of all the characters I’ve played on TV, in real life I would like to be friends with Saz from Some Girls. She’s a little bit crazy and I’d never get bored of her. She’s one of those people where you just want to be like: ‘What the hell is going on inside your head?!’ She’d keep me entertained.

I always say I’m not similar to Saz at all, but the Some Girls cast say that I am. And I don’t quite know how to take that! I mean obviously Saz is a character I’ve kind of created myself in a weird way, because I’ve had the role since it was a read-through. So all of her stupid facial expressions and certain ways that she reacts to certain things, I brought those elements to the table. So yeah, maybe the silly side of me could well be Saz. But I’m definitely not socially inept like she is.

With any cast, especially doing a six-week shoot, you do end up becoming like family. And it’s difficult to just stop talking to each other because you are in each other’s life for so long. With Some Girls, all of us – as a whole cast that is – really do get along. We speak every day. And it’s actually formed really amazing friendships, I wouldn’t change it for the world. 

Likewise with Fried, it was such an amazing cast, and it was so much fun on set. Katy Wix, the Mary character, and the Derek character, Matthew Cottle, were definitely the mum and dad of Seriously Fried Chicken. And what a crazy mum and dad they are!

Matthew’s not at all like his character off-screen. One: he doesn’t have the accent. Two: he’s just so down to earth and lovely - he’s not shy but more kind of reserved. When he performs I am honestly so amazed. Whenever I watch him I’m like: ‘Where the hell do you bring that from ‘cause you’re a genius, a comedy genius!’

While filming, it’s the one production I’ve been in comedy-wise where I’ve felt so unprofessional, because I just found it so funny! So when it comes to corpsing on set, all of us were terrible! But do you know what? That just proves it’s such a funny show. 

With My Jihad, too, I’ve made amazing friends with Anjli Mohindra, and Ameet Chana as well, who I get to work with again soon in the stage version of Anita and Me. Weirdly he played my husband in My Jihad, and he’s about to play my dad! I know right? How weird! When we both read it we were like: ‘Ah… OK that’s interesting!’

Mandeep Dhillon plays Amara in Fried, Saz in Some Girls and Yasmin in My Jihad.

Fried starts on Tuesday, 25 August at 10.30pm on BBC Three. Each episode will be available in BBC iPlayer for 30 days after broadcast on TV. 

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.