Freema Agyeman is a British actress. She rose to fame with her role as the Doctor's companion Martha Jones in the BBC science fiction series Doctor Who (2007–2010) and its spin-off Torchwood (2008), and received further recognition for playing Crown Prosecutor Alesha Phillips in the ITV crime procedural Law & Order: UK (2009–2012), Amanita Caplan in the Netflix science fiction drama Sense8 (2015–2018) and Dr. Helen Sharpe in the NBC medical drama New Amsterdam (2018–2022). Following her departure from Doctor Who, Agyeman reprised her role as Martha Jones in the Doctor Who spin-off series Torchwood and had a part as Tattycoram in the BBC period miniseries Little Dorrit (both 2008). In 2013, she made her US television debut in The CW's Sex and the City prequel series, The Carrie Diaries, as magazine editor Larissa Loughlin. Her other television appearances include Mile High (2005), Bizarre ER (2008), and Dreamland (2023). Agyeman has also appeared in films, including North v South (2015), Eat Locals (2017), and The Matrix Resurrections (2021). Agyeman was born in London on 20 March 1979. Her mother, Azar, is Iranian Kurdish, and her father, Osei, is Ghanaian. They divorced when she was young. Agyeman has an older sister, Leila, and a younger brother, Dominic. Although her mother was raised as a Muslim and her father was raised as a Methodist, Agyeman grew up to be a practising Roman Catholic. Agyeman attended Our Lady's Convent RC High School, a Catholic school in Stamford Hill. Later, during the summer of 1996, she attended the Anna Scher Theatre School in Islington and studied performing arts and drama at Middlesex University, graduating in 2000. She also took a theatrical course at Radford University in Virginia in 1998, even volunteering to work as a box-office assistant for student drama productions in which she was not cast.