Still chasing her dreams
Rising star Maitreyi Ramakrishnan on the end of ‘Never Have I Ever’ and her future.
This interview contains spoilers for Season 4 of Netflix’s “Never Have I Ever.”
Maitreyi Ramakrishnan was 17 when she and her best friend saw a tweet from Mindy Kaling announcing a casting call for her new Netflix series. The pair headed to the library’s community center in their hometown of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, to put themselves on tape.
Kaling and co-creator Lang Fisher were going into production on their series “Never Have I Ever,” a coming-of-age teen comedy that revolves around Devi Vishwakumar, a first-generation Indian American teenager. The character is coping with her father’s sudden death and struggling with her identity, all while she’s on a mission to become a popular kid at her high school, lose her virginity and get into Princeton University. The show is loosely based on Kaling’s own upbringing as an Indian American teen with immigrant parents. Ramakrishnan, dark-haired, prone to saying “nifty” and exuding a laid-back vibe, looked and felt connected to the part. She beat out 15,000 hopefuls and, two weeks after graduating high school, was bound for L.A.
“It’s really hard to get me to be nervous,” she recalled recently of her first day ever on a set. “I just remember Lang’s first note to me was, ‘OK, so that was great, but just let me just slow it down by like, 70%.’ I was talking so fast because I was so excited.
I was like Busta Rhymes with my lines.”
When I first talked with Ramakrishnan ahead of the show’s launch in April 2020, during the early days of shelter-at-home orders for the COVID-19 pandemic, it was over Zoom — I was in my L.A. apartment; she was in her family’s dining room. She spoke energetically about the joys of playing the video game “Animal Crossing: New Horizons,” her obsession with the TV series “Community” and painting Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” on a piece of bedroom furniture.
Now, the show that introduced Ramakrishnan to the world has released its fourth and final season. The concluding episodes of “Never Have I Ever” follow Devi as a senior eager to graduate but anxious about her future after she’s placed on the waitlist for her dream school, Princeton. (In the end, she makes it in.)
Sitting at a table inside a restaurant at a West Hollywood hotel on a recent weekday, Ramakrishnan, now 21, is as effervescent and affable as ever discussing the final season in between moments of praising the “Shrek” soundtrack and jokingly expressing frustration at her cast’s poor showing on “Family Feud.”
In the time since filming wrapped last summer, Ramakrishnan, like her fictional alter ego, headed to college. After initially deferring admission to York University in Canada to make her Hollywood debut, the actor began a full course load in September. While she spent her early years convinced she’d work in animation, with age came the realization that goals evolve. She’s studying to get a degree in human rights and equity studies. But, no, she doesn’t want to become a lawyer.
“You can get knowledge and education from any corner of the planet, but I’m mostly privileged to be able to go to university,” she says. “So that’s why I’m really going. I like learning. I have the ability to, and I am even more lucky to learn something that I don’t necessarily need to go into professionally.”
Ramakrishnan discussed where Devi finds herself by the end of the series, why she said she was on different teams (Ben or Paxton) to different outlets, and the one school club she’s actually a member of. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
We see that Devi gets into the school that she had her eyes set on this whole time — Princeton. What did you think of how things ended for her?
Heavy plot armor on the fact that she’s never getting into any other college. That’s OK — it’s TV, I’ll allow it. Makes good television. But there’s no way she didn’t get into any other one. Come on! That makes no sense! But I liked that she didn’t get it right away.
Low-key in Season 2, I was kind of rooting for the idea that she doesn’t even go to Princeton at all. This was a selfish thing for me because I knew when I was 10 years old that I wanted to go to Sheridan College. I wanted to go to the animation program, get pulled out of there and go straight to Pixar. That was what the dream was. And then I got to my last year, my senior year of high school, was working on my portfolio and realized I was miserable and I had to let go of a childhood dream.
We get so locked on those.
Yes. And I became the girl that was known as “the girl with the dream of being a Disney animator.” And when I knew I didn’t want to do that deep down, not only did I feel like I let down my mom and my dad, who put so much time and money into art classes and art supplies, and my friends who have known me in trying to become that person, but I felt like I was letting down my 10-year-old self. But I think I learned I can’t live for my 10-year-old self; I have to live with the current self. It’s OK to change your dream. So, we get the scripts as we go along and as we film, and I thought for a moment, Devi was just actually not gonna get in — at all. So, I don’t mind the plot armor.
Do you know if there was a version where she didn’t get accepted in the end?
There were alternate versions, which I’m glad they didn’t go down.
Like what? Mindy and Lang aren’t doing press right now because of the writers’ strike.
The writers are so amazing. They really explore everything and I think they always nail it. The show would not be what it is without them. I think there was one version where she got in [to Princeton] earlier. There was one version where she got waitlisted at both Columbia and Princeton. I saw that only in one draft and it was gone. I was like, “Hell no. Hell no. Columbia was never an option, sweetheart. Uh-uh. We ain’t switching our minds for a boy.”
I think they were going to put it in there just like a tease, but they would never have Devi do that. Devi was never going to go to Columbia. But I think, honestly, it was pretty solidly that Devi was going to end up going to Princeton, and that was going to be the dream fulfilled. I am a sucker for a good story of chasing your dreams. I would have been happy either way, but I do like seeing dreams succeed.
We also see that Devi ends up with Ben. How did you feel about that?
For me, the show ending is not about the last scene where they’re in the dorm together. For me, the ending is more about the fact that she’s back at the altar, and she’s praying, and she’s so grateful for not only the people around her but the life she’s living. In that scene, when I was acting that out, it was very easy because I was just thinking about the gratitude that I have for the show, the opportunity, for the crew members that have worked on the show and have taught me so many things, for Mindy, for the fans, for my family.
My mom and my dad drove me to work every single day [for] Season 1, 2 and 3. And never once did they complain to me. Never once. So, it was so easy to act out that scene. It was important to me to hit it exactly right to show overwhelming gratitude — that was the emotion I wanted to portray. In terms of who she ends up with, eh, it’s not the point. But I said people could ask me whose team I’m on.
Yes, I saw the tweet.
OK, so, I’m Team Paxton. I get it. I get it. He’s a year older. Valid. He needed to not be in her life — for now. But hear me out. I think that Paxton (Darren Barnet) and Ben (Jaren Lewison) are great people, but Paxton and Devi are nice opposites. Personally, I think he brings out a different side of Devi that doesn’t focus on academics because she focuses on academics herself. She needs someone to see outside of that. That would be why I like them together.
Did you think there was going to be an “I choose me” moment instead? She’s young, bound for college, and seems like she’d be totally fine with not being tethered.
See, I kind of wanted that, just for ease. But I understand where fans would be coming from of being like, “Ew, cheesy.” But I’m a cheesy guy! Sue me! That ending, for me, of her choosing Ben, it’s as John McEnroe [who is the show’s narrator] says, “For now.” It’s literally for now.
You’re not that far removed from that whole senior-year experience that we see in this final season. I am part of the generation that just missed the era of making a hoopla around college acceptance letters. There’s TikTok videos where seniors document themselves checking their admissions status, Instagram photos with their rooms decked out in college colors.
A lot of people take a lot of pride in going to school. I sometimes wonder maybe if that would have been me, if I didn’t live the “Never Have I Ever” life. I get the appeal, especially just in the age where everyone wants to document what they’re doing. That’s a fun vibe.
I go into campus, [and] I leave as soon as I can. I’m a part of one club. It’s the York University Super Smash Bros. Club. It’s just a Discord channel, where people talk about different competitions happening for Super Smash Bros., which is my favorite video game. But that’s it. I’ve never met any of the other members. I have two friends at the university.
You mentioned that your parents relocated so you could have this experience. I imagine, either knowingly or unknowingly, that put a lot of pressure on you because they uprooted their lives.
I felt pressure to be less of a brat at 17, give them less of a hard time every so often [and] tone down the meltdowns. In all seriousness, my mom, before the pandemic, took off to work from home; her boss was super cool to let her work from home in L.A.
Then, halfway through filming, she switched out with my dad. It definitely made me feel a little bit of pressure, but also not really because, and this is just how my family rolls, I knew without a doubt my parents were gonna do that for me. That wasn’t even a question. It was pressure in the sense of, “OK, you’re doing everything for me. I have no reason to not be on my ‘A’ game.”
Tell me about impostor syndrome. Did this experience show you what you’re capable of ?
As an actor, it showed me that I’m capable of way more than I thought. I thought Mindy was freaking crazy. I was like, “You’re Mindy Kaling. Why are you putting your name to this random girl? Are you insane?” But I realized, as I was working on my last episode in Season 4 and looking back, how much I know now. I really did pick it up. A lot of my peers have been child stars or they’ve just been in the game or they have family members who are in this world, so they’ve been around it. No one in my family is in the entertainment industry in any aspect, let alone acting.
It gets intimidating because you have people kind of sizing you up. Being sized up in front of a bunch of different cameras, where you’re expected to be like, “I’m so confident” — no, I’m not. I don’t think any human is meant to be viewed by millions [of people] and have millions of people’s opinions projected on you. That’s a lot of stress. Now, though, I’ve grown to realize — yeah, I did 40 episodes, and I’m the only one in every single one. That’s pretty amazing. And I helped lead it for four seasons. And I did that on my first shot — that is pretty freakin’ cool.
I’m meant to do this. I’m meant to be here just as much as anyone else. And if people question the science of how I got there — I like to tell people I’m a nepo baby of Mindy Kaling. I feel like that helps people comprehend it better. It’s not true, but it might help the narrative.
You talked about not being in the best mental state when this opportunity presented itself. How much did that weigh on you when considering whether to take on this experience? Did you worry this exposure, and the pressures that come with it, might be more detrimental to your well being?
I think I was the extreme opposite. I was like, “Let’s go, guns blazing!” Really. It’s a good and a bad thing because I had a very good thing come to me. I have a brilliant gift in knowing what I like to do with the rest of my life. But that meant, “Maitreyi, you need to unpack. Maitreyi, you’re not very happy. Maitreyi, you have a lot of sad things in your brain and you should unpack that.” And I think with the help of Devi, I did actually get to.
There’s no instruction guide for being catapulted into this industry, especially on a series that’s on a global platform, especially as a young woman of color. How have you navigated that?
I have a couple of things that I tell myself, like morals. No. 1: Don’t tweet anything or comment anything or say anything in an interview that you’re not willing to talk about 10 minutes later. If you’re going to tweet an article about something, if you’re not willing to have any news outlet hit you up to ask for an interview about it, then don’t talk about it. Keep reading. That’s one.
No. 2: The sad truth is, the audience, no matter how much they love you, no one will ever know you for who you are better than you’ll know yourself. That was a big one I had to learn because with the birth of Devi, especially in Season 1, felt like the death of Maitreyi. I would try to push myself to be like, “Oh, I’m not like Devi. Look at me, I’m so different.” Because I just wanted people to know that Maitreyi existed because I love who I am. I don’t want me to disappear. But then I realized, I only disappear if I let myself disappear.
Another big one was simply about representation. I learned that Devi can’t possibly represent every South Asian girl — no way — or we would get a blob of a character and she’d be shapeless, and she would have no personality. Then I realized, “Oh, you know what? Not everyone can relate to me. Not every South Asian girl can look at me and say, ‘Oh, I’m like her.’ ”
What are you excited for next? You’ve done some voice-over work. I know you’ve been in school, but have there been many auditions?
Still auditioning, which is like a reverse experience. It’s been interesting. Sometimes you get real close, and it just doesn’t pan out. You learn rejection, as many actors do. We still have a long way to go, but I think my team finds those good scripts, and my team is always constantly challenging what’s called for: OK, this could be a brown girl, there’s nothing explicit about race, let’s try. That’s how I like to operate.
I do get impatient just because I’m a workaholic. But one of the best pieces of advice I got from a casting director was just to go live life because it only enriches your performances. I feel like there’s a lot of pressure when actors finish big things, to have something big lined up right away. Please do not forget about me! Give me a couple of months! But I’m trying to remember it’s OK to not really have anything planned because the unknown is quite exciting.
It was so great catching up with you and finally getting to meet in person. Congratulations on wrapping up the series.
Can I say one thing because I actually like you, so I can’t be a jerk? I have this thing where I’ve been telling everyone I have a different team. So the next interview that I do, and they tell me that they’re coming out with their interview after the show releases, I will tell them I’m Team Ben. ... You can add this at the end of the interview: “She lied. Disclaimer: She completely lied.”
If you read this article fully, you will know that I’m Team Devi. For the past four years, an interviewer will ask me, “OK, but what team are you really on?” After I say Team Devi, they’ll be like, “Yeah, OK, but really, you can tell us.” Do you really think the girl that’s repping brown girls all over the world really believes that she belongs with one of these white guys? Really? It’s gonna happen tomorrow at the junket. All of them are going to ask me which team I’m on. And every single time, I’m going to change it. The real answer is, genuinely, I’m Team Devi.
I wish personally that it did go in a way where McEnroe added extra words, something along the lines of, “Then they broke up.” Because what did you expect? They’re high schoolers. That is what I wanted. But alas, it didn’t happen, but it’s OK. We live.