In 2011, Dhillon played a school student in
The Knowledge at the
Bush Theatre. The production received a positive review in
The Times, with Dominic Maxwell saying that "There [was] not a whiff of stage school" to the actors, including Dhillon, portraying the students. A radio production featuring Dhillon and the rest of the original cast was broadcast on
BBC Radio 4. and
Time Out said she was "luminous". After appearances in
The Mimic (2011) In the main series the character's name is Amara, and she is from a wealthy family, having got a job in a fried chicken shop at the behest of her family who want her to appreciate the value of money. Dhillon's performance as Meena in the stage adaptation of
Anita and Me, which played at the
Birmingham Repertory Theatre and then the
Theatre Royal Stratford East in 2015,
Michael Billington in
The Guardian had a similar view, giving the play a middle-rated 3 stars out of 5, whilst highlighting the "good work" done by Mandeep Dhillon and her co-star Jalleh Alizadeh. She auditioned for
Ricky Gervais's film
David Brent: Life on the Road (2016) and won the part of a receptionist after Gervais asked her what she thought of the
David Brent character and she replied "he scares me." She appeared in the British romantic comedy film
Finding Fatimah in 2017. Umbreen Ali in
Asian Image gave the movie a positive review, saying that "the charismatic Nayna [played by Dhillon] delivers her dialogue with perfectly projected dramatic nuance." In 2017, Dhillon played the lead role as Krishna in the short film
Garfield and won the
Actor Award at
Underwire Film Festival. Dhillon played the main character Constable Lizbyet Corwi in the four part BBC Drama
The City and the City in 2018, alongside
David Morrissey who played her police partner, Inspector Tyador Borlú. Dhillon said in a 2018 interview that she enjoyed the role and working with Morrissey, one of the reasons being that "To actually play a lead, a female lead, and to have a male cop and a female cop, and there not be any sexual tension ... we could have
bants and have that good friendship vibe." She also spoke positively of her perception that the show used
colour blind casting. In the
black comedy series
After Life (2019–2022), Dhillon portrays Sandy, a journalist working for Tony, played by the show's creator, Gervais. The two characters form what
Wonderland Magazine called "a compassionate and nurturing bond". The pair had previously worked together on
David Brent: Life on the Road, and according to her account, he approached her at a Christmas Party and told her that he had written the role in
After Life with her in mind. In 2019, she was in the films
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker as Lieutenant Garan, and
Songbird, a film, like
A Wonderful Christmas Time, that was directed by Jamie Adams and included improvisation. The reviewer of
Songbird in the
Oxford Times lamented that Dhillon and the other actors were "talented performers ... saddled with such negligible roles". She played a "cat
cleric" that worships the character
Dave Lister in
Red Dwarf: The Promised Land (2020). During the
COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, Dhillon recorded a self-written monologue titled "Letter to My Future Self" in support of an initiative to raise money for the benevolent fund of the actors' union
Equity, and starred in a short online film,
The Forgotten C, based on the true story of a woman who died from
lung cancer during the UK
lockdown. On radio, she participated in
Newsjack in 2017, a show that features the cast performing material sent in by the public, and has appeared in leading roles in BBC Radio 4 dramas
The Beard (2018) and
Freezing to Death (and How to Avoid It) (2020). ==Filmography==