(Photo: BBC America)
Mood, the new musical drama series coming to BBC America this weekend, is a tour-de-force from Nicôle Lecky. She doesn't just star as Sasha Clayton, an aspiring musician drawn into the worlds of social media influencing and sex work, but also wrote and created the show.

Ahead of Mood's premiere this Sunday (November 6) on BBC America and AMC+, here are 10 things to know about this fast-rising star.

1. She also wrote and starred in the acclaimed one-woman play Superhoe.
Lecky held a staged reading of her play with the Talawa Theatre Company in 2018, then premiered it at London's Royal Court Theatre the following year. Mood is an adaptation of Superhoe that really took shape during this period. "When I did it at the Royal Court, it actually already had a TV script commission," Lecky told The Face earlier this year. "As soon as I finished performing, I wrote the first episode straight away."

2. She wants Mood to show a different and more authentic side of sex work.
Lecky interviewed dozens of women who earn a living as sex workers in order to ensure that Sasha's story is firmly rooted in authenticity. "I very much feel with sex work [on screen], it’s traditionally gone one of two ways: either 'drug-addled prostitute' or the glamorised, degree-educated woman, who just loves sex and is very empowered," she told Vogue. It never showed how a very 'normal' girl can fall into it and then before she knows it, it’s kind-of like, 'Oh, hang on a minute, I’m now doing sex work.'"
3. She believes the show will be especially revelatory for American viewers.
That's because it tells a story we've rarely seen on screen before. "Americans want to see a different side of Britishness," Lecky told Deadline. "They’ve seen a lot of Brits sipping tea and gang shows but not much like this, about a normal girl in a pocket of London who goes on a huge journey."
4. She wrote and performed original songs for the series.
Check out this stunning performance of "Nobody's Favourite," a haunting ballad from the show, that Lecky uploaded to YouTube. You can also stream 13 songs from the show on Spotify and other streaming platforms.

5. She's a proud East Londoner.
Lecky grew up in Stratford, a neighborhood that's now home to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, the main venue of the London 2012 Olympic Games. "Mine was a mixed happy youth in hindsight," she told The Arts Desk. "When I went to a fee-paying drama school I was 19, I met mostly white people who were quite privileged. Where I’d grown up it was super-diverse, there were Black people, Asian people, and I'd never really thought about race and class because that was the world I was living in. It was only when I was older I thought about it."
6. She wrote two episodes of the EastEnders spin-off series, EastEnders: E20.
This online soap opera ran for 37 episodes in 2010-11. Everyone on the writing team was aged between 17 and 22; they earned their spot by attending a summer school for up-and-coming writers in East London. EastEnders: E20 featured favorites from the main EastEnders cast plus newcomers including future Doctor Who star Tosin Cole.
7. She wrote, directed and starred in the short film The Moor Girl.
In The Moor Girl, Lecky plays a young woman who returns to the place where she was abandoned as a baby. Her aim? To find out more about her family background and mixed-race identity. Released in 2017, it's a poignant and powerful short that you can watch in full below.

8. She appeared in the cult series Sense8.
Lecky played Bambie, the girlfriend of Frank Dillane's character Shugs, in three episodes of the visionary sci-fi series from The Matrix's Lana and Lilly Wachowski. "They were fun and intense," Lecky told The Arts Desk. "It was the sort of thing where you’d turn up and the script was not there or the script was completely different. The day before the shoot it was like, 'You’re not from London anymore, you’re from Australia.' I’d had a couple of auditions with the London accent and they were like, 'Yeah, that’s fine,' but when I turned up I was Australian. I whipped that up in a day and, yeah, I do watch it back and I can tell."
9. She also appeared in Death in Paradise.
You can catch Lecky in the 2019 two-parter "Beyond the Shining Sea." Spoiler alert: she plays a festival queen who is murdered while taking a boat trip around the island of Saint Marie.
10. And finally, she is most certainly a hard worker.
During an interview with The Stylist, Lecky got real about exactly what it took to be across all aspects of Mood. "We love being a boss," she said. "It's hard enough to be in a show and write it but with all the musical elements and actually really wanting to executively produce (I wanted to know everything) – that comes with a lack of sleep. But you just have to go for it."
Are you looking forward to watching Mood?