Shalini wears: jacket and top by The Frankie Shop; and jewellery by TASAKI

Shalini Peiris recalls exactly where she was when she learnt that she had been given a part in the third series of The White Lotus. “I even know the time that I got the call,” she laughs. “I had landed in London, and I was still on the plane. I saw this missed call from my agent Tom, and I called him back. I was still disembarking when he told me: ‘It’s good news’. And I remember having to contain all these feelings; I got off the plane and I ran to the toilet and locked myself inside and just did this insane happy dance. And then I was just like, well now I need to go through immigration, and get on the tube, and act like everything’s fine, like, you know, my life has not just dramatically changed right now!”

Having watched and loved the first two series, she says that even sending a self-tape in had felt like a dream. “I’m a huge fan of the show. I have what I call my ‘if only’ shows (the kind of shows, as an actor, you watch and you just think, if only I could be in something like that one day) and I watched those first two series and it was definitely one of my ‘if only’ shows,” she explains. “I remember thinking that just them watching my tape was all I wanted to walk away with from this – that was enough for me. So then to get the part was just…” she struggles to find the right words. “I think I’m still recovering from that. I was kind of waiting for someone to tell me that it was an admin error… I mean it was a real honour in every sense of the word. I’ve been in this business 15 years, you know, and there are real milestone moments, and it’s very emotional and surreal when you realise that you’re living one of them. And it’s something that’s been very long, and hard worked for, so last year was just… that’s a year I’m never going to forget.”

“I THINK I’M MORE EXCITED AS A FAN FIRST TO WATCH THE SHOW, AND THEN I HAVE A MOMENT WHERE I REMEMBER I’M IN THIS ONE”

Shalini wears: dress by POAN; cape by E.STOTT; earrings by Maria Black Jewelry; gloves by Handsome Stockholm; and shoes by Michael Kors

When I speak to Shalini, the series is yet to première, and what she can tell me about it is quite limited. “Without giving too much away, I play Amrita, who is a spiritual counsellor and a meditation teacher, and she has a very significant connection with one of the principal characters. And that plays a part in how that character’s journey unfolds, and that kind of impacts the whole story,” she tells me about her role.

Though details are scant, she assures me that fans are in for a treat. “I think the scale this season… it feels like a real elevation. They’ve been sending us some screeners, ahead of the première, but not all of it. I think a lot of it they’re keeping under lock and key, even from us. But what I have seen… I was losing my proverbial shit watching it! It’s very much the The White Lotus that we all know and love, but then it takes you somewhere else this season! And I come from Sri Lanka, so to see it shot in Asia is very special as well. There are so many elements of our It is obvious that this was a significant career moment for Shalini; where does she want to go from here? “Oh, my gosh… I have like 1,000 answers to this, and it keeps changing,” she exclaims. “I would love to be a kind of chameleon where you never quite know what to expect; I think there are some actors who have really excelled at that. I would love to do comedy, I’d love to do a really gritty detective drama, and also to get my claws into the fantasy world, and to play a character from a complete other dimension. I mean, I would really love to do it all. And also, I know that a lot of people in Sri Lanka have been super proud and super supportive, and I carry that with me always – so I just want to keep surprising them and just breaking new ground in terms of what we can do, as well.”

Shalini wears: outfit by Ridhi Mehra at Amrika; earrings by Annoushka; bracelet and ring by TASAKI; and shoes by Sole Bliss

I wonder what it was about acting that was quite so hard to give up on. “One thing I really struggled with in academics and then in the NGO sector, was I felt like I was missing sometimes the empathy,” Shalini tells me. “Especially in academics, where we were discussing these huge, very human issues, in quite theoretical frameworks, and I would kind of struggle with that. It felt like the humanity of it was somehow absent, and that is what I love most about storytelling. We’ve been storytellers from the very beginning, and I think that actually, the simplest but the most powerful way to impact somebody is to connect to them just simply through telling a story. You can connect to a person halfway across the world, and it can uplift you, it can entertain you. It can make you cry; it can make you laugh; it can give you an escape. I think it’s a really quite magical thing to be a part of. There’s nothing like it. But it’s also incredibly terrifying and heart-breaking, and I’ve had so many moments of heartbreak along this 15-year journey, but I know there’s nothing else I’m made to do.”

Having stuck at it through the heartbreak, Shalini’s perseverance is clearly beginning to pay off. “Once upon a time I had about five part time jobs, luckily there’s not so much of a pressing necessity for that as there once was,” she agrees. She might not need to spend the downtime between acting jobs doing paid work, but by all accounts she is never idle. “I volunteer at a soup kitchen, which is something I’ve done for many, many years,” she reveals. “As long as I’m in London, you will see me there every Monday. It’s an incredible local west London charity called Streetlytes; I love to do some form of volunteering wherever I am.”