The cast of Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy was electric in Season 1. One’s got to imagine it’s a challenge to join such an ensemble and encourage the audience to fall for your character just as hard, but Ritu Arya did just that in the second season as Lila Pitts.
When we first meet Lila in the hit Netflix series, her adoptive mother, The Handler (Kate Walsh), has her assisting in her mission to overthrow the authority at The Commission so she can assume control. However, after succeeding in that plan, Lila comes to learn that The Handler is responsible for the murder of her biological mother and stepfather, putting their entire relationship in question. Diego (David Castañeda) and the Umbrellas try to convince Lila that they can be her family, but after The Handler is shot, Lila opts to take off with the briefcase.
Season 3 picks up immediately after the events of Season 2 with the Umbrellas making their way home sweet home to present-day New York — or so they think. Their home now belongs to The Sparrow Academy, an alternative version of their super-powered family. Ultimately, Lila does make her way back to the group to test this notion of family in an unexpected way; she tells Diego that they had a son together, Stanley (Javon Walton).
With The Umbrella Academy Season 3 now available to watch — or, let’s get real, to binge on Netflix, Arya joined us for an episode of Collider Ladies Night Pre-Party to retrace her steps in the industry and discuss how she scored a role on one of the streamer’s hottest shows.
Even though Arya had an itch to act and was inspired by Shah Rukh Khan at a very young age, when the time came to attend university, she wasn’t quite ready for acting to be work just yet. So instead, she pursued another passion, studying physics. However, towards the end of that program, Arya knew the time had come. She had to fully commit to studying and pursuing a career in acting. Here’s how she put it:
“It was my last term at Uni and I really found it hard to concentrate because I was so excited to start applying to drama schools. And, you know, I know you don’t have to go to drama school to be an incredible actor. I know so many actors that didn’t do that. It’s just my journey I think because I didn’t know any other way. I just had heard of that. But yeah, I found it quite hard to study in that last term because I was getting a bit antsy to get the ball rolling.”
Arya went on to train at the Oxford School of Drama. While the program did give her countless tools to apply to her first professional gigs, there was one thing that all the studying in the world could never have prepared her for, the extreme amount of rejection one often encounters in this business.
“I found it very difficult for the first few years. The first five years, actually. I didn’t have a good thing in place so I took it very badly. It made me very miserable. I spent a lot of time just in bed crying, not knowing why or how I would continue with this career because I just took it very personally. And it’s too long to be moping around over something that is out of your control. There’s nothing you can do to prepare for the rejection other than just know it’s gonna happen, know it’s not personal, do your best work, have something in place that you can do after an audition or even, for me, another thing that you love as much. Or not even as much, but I feel like it helped me a lot playing music because it was just another creative outlet that I was able to channel and it made me less intense about acting and getting roles and things.”
The combination of embracing her love of playing music and practicing mediation did the trick. Soon after receiving a nomination for Best Newcomer at the British Soap Awards, Arya booked a role that would send her star soaring, Lila on Umbrella Academy. While it’s abundantly clear now that playing Lila was a game-changing opportunity, back when Arya first auditioned for the role, she thought it was only going to be a one-episode thing. Here’s how she explained it:
“I didn’t have any idea when I auditioned. It was just one scene I think they had written for the audition purpose. She was just really, really cool, manipulative and funny and mischievous and kind of aloof, which felt powerful. So I just really wanted to play her, and I thought she was just in one episode. I think there was maybe one other scene that they’d given, so I think it was two scenes and I was like, ‘I so badly want this.’ Then they said I had a meeting with the showrunner and he was sort of like, ‘You’re gonna love it here. I really hope you accept, or want to work with us and stuff.’ And I was just like, ‘Whoa, okay.’ [I] did, and he said, ‘Oh, also, she has superpowers and she’s gonna be in all the episodes.’ And I was just like — I think I actually stopped speaking! I don’t think I’ve ever been speechless before. I think I just went, [gives the thumbs up]. [Laughs] And then afterwards I was like, ‘Ritu, why did you do that?’”
Arya has taken the role of Lila and run with it in all the best ways. Not only did she very much match the charisma and appeal of all the Umbrellas from Season 1, but she also brought an extremely effective fresh sense of spice and personality to the show. Lila is an unpredictable firecracker. She’s a master manipulator and has a habit of making impulsive decisions yet, somehow, Arya’s able to make every single one of Lila’s curious decisions and hilarious one-liners feel true to character. What’s the key to nailing those qualities? Arya’s prep process might have something to do with it. She explained:
“I think sometimes before a take, the impulsive thing, so I might just do something unexpected for myself, whether that’s a weird move or saying something, not for anyone else, just for myself, I think can get me into her unpredictable world.”
Not only does Arya shine on screen in Seasons 2 and 3 of The Umbrella Academy, but she’s also made the most of showrunner Steve Blackman’s eagerness to collaborate. In fact, Lila’s Season 3, Episode 3 fight with Five (Aidan Gallagher) was a result of her suggestion.
“There’s the scene where Lila and Five meet for the first time in Season 3 and when I got the script through they just sort of had this conversation. It’s always so well written, but I just thought, ‘Ugh, this is hard for me because I really went in there with the hate at the end of Episode 10 of the last season [and] I feel like that hasn’t been resolved yet.’ And it was niggling in me so I suggested to Steve, ‘Could we have a fight there?’ Because there’s something that would, one, create a bigger journey for them and, two, she’s still in that place, and also it’s kind of more Lila, and he loved that idea and wrote something really cool.”
Looking for more from Arya on her journey from Shah Rukh Khan superfan to starring in The Umbrella Academy? You can watch her full Collider Ladies Night Pre-Party interview in video form at the top of this article or you can listen to it in podcast form below:
Listen to The Collider Ladies Night Pre-Party Interview here.