Maitreyi Ramakrishnan has been feeling the pressure since April.
That’s when the Tamil-Canadian actor became the de facto pop cultural representation for brown girls everywhere. So many look to Ramakrishnan, or her character Devi on the Netflix sitcom Never Have I Ever, to represent the best of what it means to be a brown girl.
“Devi can’t possibly represent all brown girls,” says Ramakrishnan, speaking to NOW from her basement in Mississauga, responding to reactions the wildly popular show has inspired. “I can’t [even] represent all Tamil people. I don’t have the same experience as everybody.”
We’re discussing what a fraught term representation has become. Ramakrishnan’s instant fame has naturally put her on the top of every wish list for awards show producers and brands. But given this summer’s racial reckoning and a mad scramble to push BIPOC talent to the forefront, you can’t help but feel wary that producers, especially in Canada where diversity on screen is a joke, might tokenize Ramakrishnan.
“Even if it’s a matter of two steps forward, one step back, we’re still going forward,” says Ramakrishnan, who recently became a global ambassador for Plan International Canada to advocate for children’s rights and gender equality. She’s staying positive about a conversation she hopes will remain relevant even if it stops trending.
But she is also cautious about how being brown or South Asian or whatever you want to call it can be treated as something monolithic, rubbing out the specificities that come with culture and experience. In early May, online speculation floated Ramakrishnan as an ideal Ms. Marvel, a Muslim superhero, for the upcoming Disney+ series. She was quick to shut that suggestion down.
“For Kamala Khan, Ms. Marvel, it’s integral to her character to be Pakistani-Muslim,” says Ramakrishnan, giving props to Disney for eventually casting Markham’s Iman Vellani in the role. “It is a part of [Kamala Khan’s] storyline and her relationship to her dad. It’s not something that could be switched to my ethnicity. It’s not negotiable. If it were a Tamil superhero, I wouldn’t want somebody else playing it if they weren’t Tamil.”
I’m speaking to Ramakrishnan in late October. The U.S. election is days away, dangling the possibility that Kamala Harris, a half-Black and half-Tamil woman, will become vice president.
In previous interviews, Ramakrishnan, has alternated between relaxed and excited but never nervous. But this time she starts listing off mounting anxieties: from what the election results would mean for humanity to whether she will infect people with COVID while on set. She’s also nervous about delivering “some good content” in season two, hoping season one wasn’t a fluke. She lists these anxieties in a British accent – that’s a thing she does when she’s nervous. Even her coping mechanisms are fun.
No one can deny the first season’s impact. According to Netflix, over 40 million households viewed Never Have I Ever in its first month.
“We were lucky people were all at home and depressed by the state of the world, and wanted something funny to watch,” says executive producer Mindy Kaling, in an email to NOW.
The show launched Ramakrishnan from obscurity to obscenely famous, a major payoff of co-creators Kaling and (co-producer) Lang Fisher’s wide-open casting call. Out of more than 15,000 submissions, they landed on Ramakrishnan, whose only prior acting experience was a high school play.
“Maitreyi had a confidence that was past her years,” says Kaling, describing Ramakrishnan’s self-shot audition tape. “Lang and I both couldn’t stop thinking about her. She had a breeziness and utterly original take on the character, and it was so clear Devi had to be her.”
The comic series, which is loosely inspired by Kaling’s life, is about an Indian-American high school student navigating sex, popularity and friendship. The show received an outpouring of love, appreciation, excitement and pretty much all the feels. But it was also criticized by the community it represents. And that criticism was as diverse as the show.
Some couldn’t fathom a brown girl going to therapy because mental health is so taboo in South Asian culture. They also recoiled at the idea that a temperamental brown girl like Devi would speak flippantly to her mother (Poorna Jagannathan). Others couldn’t believe a Tamil girl would attend a party with Hindi-language music (because they clearly haven’t met my sisters). But these so-called “inaccuracies” were really just people expressing how the show didn’t always reflect their individual experience.
“Those comments might have been from the people who were really excited, hoping [Devi] would be their character,” says Ramakrishnan. She empathizes by connecting the criticism to a very specific hunger: finding the right avatar for yourself on Buzzfeed. There are brown girls everywhere taking Buzzfeed quizzes hoping to get Devi as their pop culture avatar, Ramakrishnan explains. But when they realize Devi is nothing like them, they’re stuck with Princess Jasmine.
“You’re upset because you’re still looking for representation you can relate to,” says Ramakrishnan.
“We are so starved for representation that when there is some, it has to mean so much to so many people,” adds Kaling. “I’m Tamil-Bengali but also American, because I was born in the States. It’s terribly specific. Hopefully there will be more and more shows with South Asians as leads and we don’t need one show to accomplish it all.”
Ramakrishnan and the writers took some criticisms to heart for season two.
In the pilot episode, Devi’s grief over her father’s passing manifests in paralysis of her legs, a plot detail positioned as humourous that some viewers found ableist. The paralysis was actually inspired by co-creator Lang Fisher’s own experience. Lang’s brother confounded doctors after losing the function of his legs for four months following their parents’ divorce.
“It did come from a legitimate, genuine place,” says Ramakrishnan, explaining the plot detail wasn’t thrown in to be quirky. But she also says that’s the kind of constructive criticism the show is going to incorporate. So is criticism of gags predicated on Jack Seaver McDonald playing a plus-size character, Ramakrishnan says. Kaling is on the same page, she adds: “We shouldn’t have done that. What’s done is done but we’re going to move forward and change it up.”
Ramakrishnan also takes my own criticism of the show really well. I wasn’t necessarily into Never Have I Ever from the first few episodes. But after a while, its eager-to-please YA corniness subsided and everything started to click: the wit, performances, chemistry, ingenuity and big-hearted drama.
“We definitely picked up our groove,” says Ramakrishnan, who earned a spot so high (#3!) on the New York Times best performances list she should be feeling light-headed. The first-time actor says she was growing into the role before our very eyes, while also developing a bond with the co-stars who play Devi’s best friends Fabiola and Eleanor.
“By the time we were at episode five and onwards, every single scene with Lee [Rodriguez] and Ramona [Young] is just generally us. What you’re seeing is actually real friends.”
At this point in the conversation, the anxiety has melted away and Ramakrishnan speaks with confidence about how that friendship and groove will carry forward. The training wheels are off!
“We’re not even on a two-wheel bike,” says Ramakrishnan. “We’re on some motorcycle stuff.”
She’s excited to head back to work after the pandemic temporarily put her nascent acting career on ice. Remember: She went straight from high school in Mississauga to a fictional high school on the Universal Studios lot in Los Angeles. It’s like class never let out for Ramakrishnan until the pandemic hit.
Ever since, she’s experienced celebrity from the confines of the 905, without any real idea of what fame is like.
She’s “Corona-Famous.”
“I feel the same as I did when I was in high school,” she says, explaining how little has changed even though everything has changed. “[I’m] just chilling at home with my family. I’m in the exact same house, sleeping in the exact same bed. It’s not crazy in the sense that I’m going places to feel that typical Hollywood glamour.”
She’s done a ton of interviews and even presented at shows like the Canadian Screen Awards – virtually. She has millions of followers on Instagram and TikTok, but she’s never had to deal with crowds begging for selfies.
She’s only been recognized once in the wild, despite wearing a mask, by a girl who identified her voice at the Roots in Square One mall.
Ramakrishnan didn’t even get to enjoy a red-carpet premiere for Never Have I Ever. Mindy Kaling hopes to fix that situation, pandemic permitting, when season two drops.
“I cannot wait to see Maitreyi destroy the red carpet with a fierce black tie lewk,” says Kaling. “She is a total fashionista.”
Watch more: In the video below, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan goes deeper on representation issues and being “Corona-Famous,” and plays coy about what to expect from Never Have I Ever Season Two.
