Nineteen-year-old Mia Tharia winces recalling her audition for Klara and the Sun , Taika Waititi’s upcoming adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s acclaimed novel. “I got into the room and forgot my lines,” the Balham-based teenager says one autumnal afternoon in London’s Corinthia hotel. “Taika asked me to improvise, so I did.
It was crazy getting to command that room with my performance.” Soon she was in New Zealand – alongside costars Amy Adams and Jenna Ortega – playing the girl at the heart of the sweeping sci-fi dystopia. “It was magical.
I kept reminding myself to be present and soak it all up.” On days off, she and Ortega headed to the beach or hung out at Waititi’s house, and Adams looked out for them. “She’s so lovely and caring.
She was like, ‘Does your mom want my number, just to check on you?’ And I thought, if I told my mum this, she’d actually implode.” All told, 2024 has been “a bit mental” for Tharia. Back in the spring, her first film, September Says , a fittingly dark and twisted adaptation of Daisy Johnson’s Sisters , debuted at the Cannes Film Festival .
This month, you can see her in the BBC’s Janicza Bravo-directed The Listeners , as the outspoken teen daughter of Rebecca Hall. Tharia, the daughter of a British psychologist mother and Indian father who works in the science sector, started auditioning for parts age 12. She was unsuccessful for years, until a stint with the Brixton Youth Theatre changed everything: the .