Ambika Mod has an unusual sleeping habit.
The 29-year-old actress, who rose to prominence opposite Ben Whishaw in This Is Going to Hurt, has claimed that she sleeps with her eyes open.
She delivered the bombshell lightly on The Graham Norton Show while presenting a separate story, yet none of the guests could ignore such an important information.
‘Whenever I tell this story, I say that I was in bed and my eyes, like, popped open, but I sleep with my eyes open so they just, sort of, widened slightly,’ she began during Friday night’s (February 9) episode.
Understandably, comedian Josh Widdicombe caught up on it right away and interrupted her.
‘Sorry, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!’, he interjected.
‘Stop the bus!’, declared host Graham.
‘Why have we done the rest of the show and not started with this bit?’, said a flabbergasted Josh.
‘I sleep with my eyes open,’ Ambika confessed before clarifying: ‘Not like Gandalf.’
She then pointed to Sir Ian McKellen, who was seated on the sofa with her, humorously reminding him of the feature of the well-known character he portrayed.
‘Do you know that?’, she asked.
‘Of course he does! Leave him alone, he’s 85,’ Michael Sheen jumped in.
The sofa inquired about Ambika’s odd sleeping habits, eager to learn more.
‘I don’t know what else there is to say!’, she defended.
‘Mostly it’s not fully,’ she explained before showing the audience what she meant, with her eyes somewhat half open.
‘Oh, so it’s nothing weird then?’, Josh mocked.
The actress said she has ‘always’ slept with her eyes open since she was little.
‘My mum says I used to do it as a baby and she was a bit freaked out by it, but she just, sort of, you know, she was like… it’s probably fine.’
Ambika continued: ‘I actually find it really hard to close my eyes fully. I feel like my eyelids aren’t big enough for my eyeballs.
‘If I do that (closes her eyes), I’m really actively thinking about it. Like, if I’m just relaxed, I’m sort of like (closes eyes halfway).’
She explained that she ‘has really dry eyes’, at which point Graham quipped: ‘What are we doing here? We should be making a Channel 5 documentary!’
Ambika also discussed her most recent part, One Day, a television adaption of the famous novel and film.
The Netflix TV programme follows the narrative of Emma and Dexter, who meet for the first time at graduation in the 1980s and spend the night together, with the plot following them over the next two decades, every July 15.
Ambika read the novel when she was 13 and admitted to originally declining the audition until realising she had made a ‘bad mistake’ one night.
‘The next day, I called my agent and was like, “Is it too late? Have I missed the boat?” And she was like, “No, I was just talking to the casting director who says it’s your last chance because they’re doing recalls next week.”
‘So, I learned a Yorkshire accent in two days and sent a tape off! And the rest is history.’
One Day is available to stream now on Netflix.
The Graham Norton Show airs Fridays on BBC One and iPlayer.
