Maitreyi Ramakrishnan on South Asian representation in the West: 'It's personality first'

Dubai: Maitreyi Ramakrishnan was 18 when Never Have I Ever landed her in front of millions of people, and 24 by the time she got to lead a film about competitive Bollywood dance on the same platform.

Speaking about her new Netflix release Best of the Best, the actor set out how much she thinks has shifted in South Asian representation since she started, and where she thinks it has not shifted enough.

Her read on where representation stands now is that the order of things has changed.

"In recent years, representation has gotten strides farther than where we were before. It's personality first, and then the non-changeable factors of their cultural backgrounds is additional information," she says.

She is careful not to dismiss what came before it, though, even the parts that did not land for her personally.

"But I have to give the dues where it's deserved. We did have past representations that might not have necessarily been what we fully resonated with or saw ourselves in, but sometimes even just existence, though might not be reflective of your experience, still moves the needle."

The point she returns to is cumulative rather than triumphant. "A project like ours stands on the backs of all those past projects that you know paid their dues and fought the good fight to get that side role, because it all builds together. That's the only way we're going to continue," she adds.

Best of the Best puts Indian dance forms on screen at length, including classical styles such as Bharatanatyam, and this is where Ramakrishnan is sharpest.

"All these dance styles come from very rich cultures and histories and our choreographers kept it real. We're not settling for just waving our hands in the air anymore. That's not happening," she insists.

The reference point she is pushing against is the snake charmer shorthand that Indian dance and music have often been reduced to in Western productions.

Ramakrishnan did not set out to be an actor at all. She wanted to work behind the camera, as an animator.

Her account of how the first season landed is unusually unsentimental about her own success.

"Never Have I Ever season one came out in COVID and because everything was online, it kind of felt a little fake at first. It was right after Tiger King, Love is Blind, and Too Hot to Handle. So, everyone's bars were really low, and we slid right in there with a nice little comedy that's actually a story about grief."

The attention that followed was harder to process than the work.

"But the idea of being perceived by millions of people around the world constantly when you are just 18 is a lot. I never grew up wanting to be an actor or be in entertainment. I wanted to be behind the scenes and draw, and be an animator. So, it was overwhelming."

The person she credits with keeping her steady is Mindy Kaling, who cast her in Never Have I Ever after an open call that drew around 15,000 applicants.

"I got the biggest gift in having the best first boss in the world with my icon and one of the first true faces and pioneers of South Asian representation in the West, Mindy Kaling. She always kept it real and never went easy on me. She would always lead with her heart and truly saw me as a young kid who she realized she plucked out of nowhere and doesn't know this world. She really took such good care of me. So, I didn't crash out, I'm not shaving my head yet. We're still here. So, I guess we're all right."

The film started streaming globally on Netflix on 18 September and runs for one hour and 52 minutes.

Ramakrishnan plays Maya opposite Priyanka Kedia as Anjali, childhood friends who arrive at UCLA and join the university's competitive Bollywood-fusion dance team, then find the road to the US championship rougher than expected.

Lena Khan directs, having previously made The Tiger Hunter and Disney's Flora & Ulysses, and having worked on Never Have I Ever. Hasan Minhaj wrote the screenplay with his Patriot Act collaborator Prashanth Venkataramanujam, and the two also produce alongside 186K Films and Rideback. Minhaj appears on screen as well.

The supporting cast includes Lilly Singh, Janina Gavankar, Ankur Rathee, Chaneil Kular, Nico Greetham, Nihar Duvvuri, Shreya Navile, Amryn Khurana, Tanishq Joshi, Saara Chaudry and Sasha Bhasin.

The project was originally set up at Amazon MGM before moving to Netflix.

Several of the cast, Ramakrishnan included, had never danced competitively before being cast.

Khan has said she pushed the actor toward a specific physical register during casting, telling her she needed some Channing Tatum energy for the part.

Ramakrishnan was born in Mississauga, Ontario, to Tamil parents who left Sri Lanka during the civil war. Best of the Best is her first live-action lead on Netflix since Never Have I Ever ended.