Mika Simmons

Mika Simmons is a British actress and film-maker who is known for playing Queen Anora on Dragon Age, the BAFTA winning Falling Apart,   and BBC Showtrial, and the award-winning Rain Stops Play and My Week With Maisy.

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. She interviews experts and survivors about their experiences with women's health on her podcast The Happy Vagina.

Early life
Simmons was born in Greenwich, London. Her brother is journalist Keir Simmons. Aged six, her family moved to Somerset where she attended Wellsway Comprehensive school and joined Bristol Youth Theatre. She then attended University of Leeds to study theatre, graduating with a BA in English Literature and Theatre Studies. Following graduation, Simmons moved to London to train as an actress at the Drama Studio London.

Career
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. 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. In 2011, Simmons played in the play, You Once Said Yes, which won both the Fringe First and Total Theatre awards.

Simmons has appeared in the ITV drama, Unforgotten. In 2016, she appeared in Film London's short Balcony. The film went on to win a Crystal Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. In 2019 she played a part in Us Among the Stones, directed by D.R. (Dictynna) Hood. In 2020, she appeared in the BBC drama Showtrial. In 2023, Simmons played Jill in Disruption at Off West End Park Theatre alongside Nathaniel Curtis.

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. It won the Silver Remi for Best Comedy Short at the Houston Film Festival. The film has been shown at Underwire Festival and Portobello Film Festival and premiered at Fragments Festival, Genesis Cinema, London.

In 2020, Simmons started The Happy Vagina platform "dedicated to opening up the conversation around women's experience and gynaecological health" and her podcast, in which she discusses sex and intimacy with well-known women.

Simmons' first book The Happy Vagina was published on 4 August 2022.

Activism
Simmons is co-founder and co-chair of the Ginsburg Women's Health Board, working with government towards closing the gender health gap.

Simmons is one of the six women who in 2013 co-founded the Lady Garden Foundation, a charity which raises awareness and funding for gynaecological health. The charity has been supported by Topshop, Sarah, Duchess of York, and Princess Beatrice. It has raised over £1,000,000 since 2014 to assist research at the Royal Marsden Hospital into treatments including the use of Olaparib, led by Susana Banerjee who inspired Simmons to start the foundation.

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. In 2021, Simmons was chosen as one of five Harper's Bazaar visionaries for the year.

Awards
Simmons' directorial debut, 'Rain Stops Play', won the Silver Remi for best comedy at Houston World Film Festival.

In 2021 Simmons won Best international Director at Portland Film Festival.