Olivier Award-nominated actress and theatre-maker Mei Mac spoke on representation, activism and community building in the theatre and screen industries at Vice-Chancellor’s Talks at Norwich University of the Arts on 6 November 2025.

Mac spoke about advocating for her character, Min Tso in the Doctor Who spin-off The War Between the Land and the Sea, which she revealed would come out on BBC “at the end of December”.

“And the script that I was given, the character, her name is Min. And she, upon first glance, was, obviously because her name is Min Tso, she was written as an East Asian woman. Her job, primarily, is to deliver scientific information. And with my lived experience, I have seen so many East Asian women delivering scientific information. I don’t want to do that. And so, I spoke with Dylan [Holmes Williams] the director and I was like, ‘I just — I want to make sure that I’m not falling into the tropes of East Asian women’s characters or East Asian people in general in playing this character.’”

“And he was like, ‘Yeah, I totally get it. Like, what do you want to do with it?’ And so I sort of workshopped it. Like, the script is written, and it’s brilliantly written, and the story is not about me — or Min. It’s about the world that [co-writer and showrunner] Russell T Davies has created and so we are just like cogs in the world. But I also have to honour my own values.”

“And so, like I remember the first sort of ensemble piece that we filmed. We were all around a big conference room and we’re being told the military plan. I suppose I normally just sit like here and do this (sits primly) and this is how I deliver the information, suppose. And I was like, ‘what do I want to do with her?’ And so, we arrived back after the light checks and then I came back to my seat and went, ‘Oh, yeah, I’ll just, erm (bends one knee up, puts foot on chair and leans back with arm draped on knee in a cavalier posture). And then, through the physicality, I found her. And she can still deliver all her lines that Russell has written in this really rich world. And Dylan’s given me the okay to play with her. And I’d given her this attitude that aligns with my values of what I think Asian women are — a badass, right?”

Written by Russell T Davies and Pete McTighe and directed by Dylan Holmes Williams, The War Between the Land and the Sea will transmit on BBC iPlayer and BBC One in the UK in December 2025, and exclusively on Disney+ outside of the UK (where available) some time in 2026.