When Freema Agyeman stepped into the TARDIS in 2007, she became the first Black actress to play a full-time companion in the modern era of Doctor Who.
She played Martha Jones, a medical student who travels with David Tennant’s Doctor. It was a huge role in British television, and it made the London actress with a Ghanaian father and an Iranian mother one of the most recognisable faces in the country.
A London childhood
Agyeman was born on 20 March 1979 in London, the second child of Osei Agyeman, from Ghana, and Azar Agyeman, an immigrant from Iran. She grew up in north London and was raised largely by her mother after her parents separated. Her name at birth was Frema; she added the extra “e” when she began acting, to make it easier to pronounce.
She studied performing arts and drama and worked in small television roles, including on the soap The Bill, before Doctor Who came along. She had actually appeared in the show once before, as a different character, before being cast as Martha.
Martha Jones
Martha Jones was written as a smart, capable doctor-in-training who falls for the Doctor without the feeling being returned. Agyeman played her across the 2007 series and returned in later episodes and in the spin-off Torchwood. The role put her on magazine covers and in front of millions of viewers every Saturday night.
Being the first Black companion in the modern series brought attention of its own, and Agyeman has spoken about what the role meant to young Black viewers who saw themselves on the show for the first time.
Law & Order: UK
After Doctor Who, Agyeman moved to crime drama. From 2009 she played Crown Prosecutor Alesha Phillips in ITV’s Law & Order: UK, the British version of the long-running American franchise, working opposite Bradley Walsh and Ben Daniels. The role showed she could carry serious drama as well as science fiction, and it kept her on British screens for several series.
Sense8 and New Amsterdam
Agyeman moved into American television with Sense8, the Netflix science fiction drama from the Wachowskis, in which she played Amanita Caplan from 2015 to 2018. She then joined NBC’s medical drama New Amsterdam as Dr. Helen Sharpe, the head of oncology, a role she played from 2018 to 2022.
New Amsterdam gave her one of her longest-running roles and a large American audience. Fans followed the slow-burning relationship between Sharpe and Dr. Max Goodwin, played by Ryan Eggold, for several seasons.
Ghanaian and Iranian
Agyeman’s heritage has made her a point of pride for two diaspora communities at once. Lists of British stars with Ghanaian roots usually include her, and so do lists of actors with Iranian heritage.
She started out playing a doctor-in-training on a science fiction show. Fifteen years later, she was playing a senior doctor on an American hospital drama.
