Sarayu Blue is feeling great about I Feel Bad
BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF. — Actress Sarayu Blue admits she’s not living up to the illusion of the ideal woman. “I’m a disaster,” she gasps, “do you know how many thankyou cards I haven’t written? I just can’t keep up. I feel guilty if I don’t remember someone’s birthday on time. I feel guilty if I don’t call my mom on a certain day — not even a birthday — just any day. I feel bad if I don’t remember to get a present,” she says.
“It’s a lot of formalities. I joke about thank-you cards. But it’s also who I am as a person. I might not always nail every bead in that sense in life, but when it comes to the big stuff, I’ll show up.”
That’s a good thing, because Blue is showing up as the star of NBC’s new sitcom, “I Feel Bad,” arriving in its regular time slot Oct. 4. She plays the mother of three trying to cope with a marriage, job, kids and immigrant parents whose ideas often clash with hers.
Blue’s parents are from southern India, but that’s where the similarities stop. Her dad was a professor at the University of Wisconsin, her mom a short-story writer and a professor. Growing up in Madison, her home was filled with books, she recalls. And when their only child decided at 15 that she wanted to be an actress, that wasn’t on the agenda.
“Acting, it’s total insanity,” she laughs. “It’s not the wisest choice I’ve ever made. You kind of do it if you can’t not. If there’s anything else you can do and be happy — do it. If there isn’t, you just have to do it.”
She was part of the ensemble in her high school production of “Pippin.” “And I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, I love it so much. This is it.’ I honestly never looked back much, to my parents’ chagrin. I went to school and did everything and learned as much as I could — all of it — but acting was what I loved ... I was really stubborn about it,” she says.
“Both of my parents are really progressive in terms of a lot of their ideals, so I have to say that. I think my dad was always frustrated ’cause it scared him. ‘How are you going to sustain?’ ‘How are you going to make it?’ It was never from a place of strictness, it was from a place of worry. It was a legitimate concern,” she nods. “But I was stubborn about it and I insisted. I insisted from the industry, and I said, ‘No, I’m going to get there.’”
She eventually earned a master’s degree in theatre (her minor was Spanish) at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco and headed for Los Angeles to ply her trade. Plying took some time.
“I was bartending for a loooong time and inch-by-inch making my way,” says Blue. “I lived off peanut butter,” she giggles. “I eat it right out of the jar.”
In 2005 she landed, what she calls “an itty-bitty” role in Robert Redford’s “Lions for Lambs.” “I remember when I booked it, I got the call, and left the bar and started running around the block. I was so excited. And it was itty-bitty, like two lines. I was so excited!”
Parts slowly got bigger. While she admits she’s obstinate, she also credits taekwondo for helping her become more resilient. “My mom signed me up. I was 8 or 9. It was in a mall and they were doing a demonstration, and she saw the kids, and she signed me up. And she said, ‘You know what? You’re going to know how to protect yourself in this country.’
“Which was smart. Also I had a lot of energy as a kid, so it was a great source of community and family for me. It also instilled a lot of confidence and discipline for me. I went off to competitions. It became my life. And I learned self-defence, which is a great skill to have. It really was a sense of family for me.”
But the real family came four years ago when she married producer/writer/director Jonathan Blue. “We met in the corniest way possible,” she says, “at a New Year’s Eve party. Yes, we kissed,” she laughs.