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Q&A: Actress, Writer, & Director Sarah Solemani
Written by Michelle Calderon and Katie Marzullo. Published: November 20 2025
(Photo via Sarah
Solemani)
Odds are, you probably recognize Sarah Solemani for her role as Bridget's bestie Miranda in the Bridget Jones movies, but she is making waves behind the camera as well. Solemani's short film, "Mashhad", which recently premiered at the Holly Shorts Film Festival, follows a young Iranian girl who is naively unaware of the great lengths that her family goes through in order to keep her Jewish identity a secret to ensure her safety. However, one day while playing with a friend, her life and her family’s life are put in jeopardy, unfolding a journey of survival, courage, and bonds that transcend faith and fear.
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Solemani epitomizes the well-rounded creative. Her acting background has had a lot of influence in her other works as both a writer and director. Plus, on top of being an actress, writer, and director, Solemani is also an academic, having earned a Masters Degree in Political Science from Cambridge University, which adds a whole other layer to her perspective as a storyteller and her approach to the work she does. Her next project includes the feature film Mango, which she is directing. She is also showrunning the TV drama "The Party", a 5-part series starring Luke Evans, based on a novel by Elizabeth Day. The series follows a journalist (Evans) who is influenced by his lifelong friendship with a wealthy politician (Cullen).
We recently caught up with Solemani to find out more about her bold new short film and also her extraordinary career, which began on the prestiguous boards of the West End, and her thoughts on wearing many different hats in the entertainment industry.
YH: You recently premiered your first short film,
"Mashhad" at the Hollyshorts Festival here in L.A. Why did you want
to make this film and tell this particular story?
SS: Reboot Studios and studio head Noam Dromi encouraged me to tell my Jewish story. My grandparents and my
ancestors lived as secret Jews in the holy town of Mashhad in Iran.
For 200 years, the Jewish community of Mashhad were forced to
convert to Islam and kept their Jewish identity secret. My
grandfather had an Islamic name and went to Mosque, but slowly,
because of continued pogroms and persecution, they fled to
Palestine. As the film says in the closing credits, there are no
Jews living in Mashhad now, and it has a population of 4
million.
YH: What do you hope audiences will take away after
watching "Mashhad"?
SS: I hope people will expand and deepen their understanding
of the Middle East. Few people know that life was impossible for
many Jews in the region and that there were mass expulsions to
Israel in 1948, not just in Iran, but in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt,
Yemen, Morocco. They were regarded as Israelites, from the nation
of Israel, by many of the Muslim nations. This is not to undermine
the Palestinian struggle or suffering, which is real and urgent. To
support true Palestinian self-determination, we must have a clear
understanding of the history of the region and reconcile two
currently irreconcilable histories.
YH: You started your career primarily in theatre as an
actress and playwright, performing in London’s West End and having
your plays produced all over the world. What inspired you to pivot
to filmmaking?
SS: I’m currently showrunning my new show ("The Party" starring Luke Evans) and we cast really brilliant
theatre actors, Lydia Leonard, Sinead
Williams, and Sally Scott. I’ve loved
being in the company of theatre actors again, getting to know them
and also seeing the way they work. Theatre gives you a respect for
text, a respect for the process; it trains you to have reliance on
a sense of company, a discipline, a commitment. Even if you are
hemorrhaging oceans of blood, you’ll patch yourself up and get on
that damn stage. And the stories! Eye-popping, stomach-cramping
anecdotes of all the terrible and brilliant things actors get up to
behind the scenes.
From theatre, I went into television, and now I’m making
films, but it’s more about following my curiosity, being open to
where my creativity takes me. I started getting curious about
building characters, using my body and voice and emotional tools,
then I got interested in story and text, and now I’m really
fascinated by building an interesting frame and shot. But they all
soak into each other, and I am still writing a new play and will
act, write, direct. I don’t think creatives need to choose, or put
this pressure to specialise young and stick in one lane. I think
they should go in the direction of what interests them and be
honest with themselves about what skills of theirs will best serve
the story at hand.
YH: Has your acting background influenced your work as
a writer and director at all?
SS: Yes, it’s about what a scene needs for an actor to make it
alive. Sometimes, in TV, you get notes about a scene: "Why are they
reminiscing about their annoying friend from school, why can’t they
just get to the story beat about who is dead?" But you have to
defend the journey of a scene, you have to let the actors climb up
and then climb down, you have to allow them to mask what it is they
mean, because we never say what we mean, not really, or quite
rarely. Fighting for scenes that give actors proper room to play,
trusting that if it’s tense enough or truthful enough, the
audiences will stay with you, that’s been informed by my acting
work.
YH: You have a Masters degree in Political Science;
how have you applied that to your storytelling?
SS: Most stories need a degree of world-building. Social Science lets you explore systems -- class, government, culture, media, commerce -- and so you are tapping in to all the systems underneath human behaviour. That’s really useful in storytelling, particularly long form in TV, because you have to construct a whole reality that makes sense to the actors, that will transport the audience, otherwise everyone will start turning into logic police and then you’re a goner. They can tell when it’s too thin, or too surface. They connect when it’s been thought through deeply and meaningfully, when there are many systems or layers of power at work, underneath the story. Even if it’s a small domestic story about a bored housewife, the systems of power, money, class, government, policy, all of that will feed into the scene -- you have to have a handle on all of that and bury it under the pile of dishes in the sink and then deliver it wordlessly.
SS: Most stories need a degree of world-building. Social Science lets you explore systems -- class, government, culture, media, commerce -- and so you are tapping in to all the systems underneath human behaviour. That’s really useful in storytelling, particularly long form in TV, because you have to construct a whole reality that makes sense to the actors, that will transport the audience, otherwise everyone will start turning into logic police and then you’re a goner. They can tell when it’s too thin, or too surface. They connect when it’s been thought through deeply and meaningfully, when there are many systems or layers of power at work, underneath the story. Even if it’s a small domestic story about a bored housewife, the systems of power, money, class, government, policy, all of that will feed into the scene -- you have to have a handle on all of that and bury it under the pile of dishes in the sink and then deliver it wordlessly.
YH: Most mainstream audiences probably know you from
your work in the Bridget Jones movies as Bridget’s bff
Miranda; what is it about this character that keeps you coming back
to revisit her?
SS: There is no better place in the world than to be on a set
with Renée Zellweger, and no better feeling than
watching women respond to the Bridget Jones films. It
defies analysis, it’s one of those rare, beautiful things --
birthed by a Norwegian mother, raised on the plains of Texas, she
perfected those English vowels and that particular walk and somehow
the alchemy of Renée’s performance and [screenwriter] Helen
[Fielding]’s writing - people just feel
known.
YH: You’re gearing up to direct your first feature
film, Mango, which you also wrote; what are some of the
challenges you are encountering with making a feature as opposed to
a short film, or even a TV show or play?
SS: It’s the same sort of Olympian stamina, the same sort of
lurching from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm, the
same sort of delusional self-belief. Directing is about finding
your style of leadership, being decisive and also flexible and
persuading lots of talented people that the best use of their
expertise is telling the story that’s in your head.
YH: Which do you feel gives you the most creative
satisfaction: acting, writing, or directing?
SS: I love the solitude of writing, but then I get lonely and
miss people. I love the solidarity of set life, and then I get
physically exhausted and need to be in a dark, quiet room with my
editor piecing the story together, eating our food from our knees
wondering how Kubrick would have done it …
YH: What advice would you give to any aspiring
filmmakers reading this, or to any actors looking to transition to
writing & directing?
SS: Start. Begin. Don’t delay. Stop reading this and start
your script. Do it for you. No one else. Don’t think about where to
sell it, don’t even bother with outlines if it slows you down. Just
start writing, let the characters talk to each other and see where
they take you and, as Maya Angelou says, "Take
your pen and drag it across your scars."
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To keep up with Solemani’s work, check out her official website.