Mika Simmons is a British actress and film-maker who is known for playing Queen Anora in Dragon Age series,[1][2] the BAFTA winning Falling Apart,[3][4][5] and BBC Showtrial,[6] and the award-winning Rain Stops Play and My Week With Maisy.[7][8]
Simmons is also a campaigner for women's health. In 2013, she started a charity Lady Garden Foundation, which aims to raise awareness of gynaecological cancers and fund research into treatments.[9] She interviews experts and survivors about their experiences with women's health on her podcast The Happy Vagina.[10][11][12][13]
In 1998, Simmons was cast in the role of "Prudence" in ITV's Frenchman's Creek, a TV film based on the novel of the same name.[17][18] In 2002, she appeared in Channel 4's TV movie, Falling Apart, a period drama, about domestic violence in a middle-class relationship in Britain.[19][20][21][22] In 2011, Simmons played in the play, You Once Said Yes, which won both the Fringe First and Total Theatre awards.[23][failed verification][24]
Simmons has appeared in the ITV drama, Unforgotten.[25][26] In 2016, she appeared in Film London's short Balcony.[27][15] The film went on to win a Crystal Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.[11] In 2019 she played a part in Us Among the Stones, directed by D.R. (Dictynna) Hood.[28][29] In 2020, she appeared in the BBC drama Showtrial.[30] In 2023, Simmons played Jill in Disruption at Off West End Park Theatre alongside Nathaniel Curtis.[31][32][33][34]
In 2019, Simmons wrote and directed her first short film, Rain Stops Play, a comedy short about sex and the sexes, featuring Tara Fitzgerald and produced by Jackie Green and Roberta Moore.[35] It won the Silver Remi for Best Comedy Short at the Houston Film Festival.[12][13] The film has been shown at Underwire Festival[36] and Portobello Film Festival[37] and premiered at Fragments Festival, Genesis Cinema, London.[38]
In 2020, Simmons started The Happy Vagina platform "dedicated to opening up the conversation around women's experience and gynaecological health"[39][26] and her podcast, in which she discusses sex and intimacy with well-known women.[40][41][42][43]
Simmons' first book The Happy Vagina was published on 4 August 2022.[44]
Activism
Simmons is co-founder and co-chair of the Ginsburg Women's Health Board, working with government towards closing the gender health gap.[45][46]
In 2017, Simmons was chosen as one of 40 women to front Lancôme's campaign with the strapline "My power is acting" and a brief profile.[55] In 2021, Simmons was chosen as one of five Harper's Bazaar visionaries for the year.[56]
^"Princess Beatrice Gets Behind Fight Against Ovarian Cancer". MSNBC News. 13 May 2017. Retrieved 5 March 2021. NBC News' Keir Simmons sits down with Queen Elizabeth's granddaughter, Beatrice and his sister, Mika Simmons to discuss their effort to educate women about the cancer dubbed "the silent killer".
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