Maitreyi Ramakrishnan on navigating stardom, cyber-trolling and life at large

For the young star of Never Have I Ever, it’s her you-do-you philosophy that helps her cruise through fame, social media, and everything in between

When Maitreyi Ramakrishnan’s high-school romcom series Never Have I Ever dropped on Netflix in 2020, the then 18-year-old was in quarantine at home in Canada. There were no red-carpet premieres or launch parties. Instead, it all unfolded on social media. Within hours of its release, the Mindy Kaling- and Lang Fisher-directorial stormed Twitter, watch lists and the hearts of millions across the globe. And in turn, Ramakrishnan’s Devi Vishwakumar, in all her arm-haired glory, became one of the most real and relatable gen-Z characters that the OTT landscape has offered us in recent times. A first-generation immigrant in America awkwardly straddling two cultures even as she navigates adolescence and all that it comes with—sex, love, friendships, rebellion, body image issues and insecurities—Vishwakumar evolves multifold in the first season. But the character arcs are even more remarkable in the upcoming instalment, set to hit screens in July 2021. An excited Ramakrishnan says, “Expect the unexpected.”

For the Tamil-Canadian actor, who beat 15,000 applicants to make her acting debut, the catapult to fame was nothing short of a whirlwind. “A lot of it was all on social media, making me think, ‘Wait, is this actually real or is this just an internet thing?’” Ramakrishnan recalls the moment when the show started topping the trending charts on Netflix. But fame forced The New York Times’s Best Actor of 2020 to grow up faster, she admits. And not just regular fame—fame in a pandemic-stricken world, which is a whole other ball game. “If I didn’t get the show and I was just a 19-year-old girl in university doing my thing, I’d be completely different. I think fame has forced me to mature and have those deep conversations with myself and be my own best friend, especially in quarantine, when you have to spend so much time with yourself.”

In many ways, what Ramakrishnan has achieved is an antithesis of her reel self: “Devi doesn’t like being alone. She doesn’t like being in her own head. There’s never a moment where she thinks she’s a great person.” And that’s the significant journey her real self has made in a very short period. Even though self-acceptance for this rising star—whose confidence is perpetually being put to test by social media trolling—is a work in progress rather than a final destination, she’s come a long way in being comfortable in her own skin. “I don’t think you ever get to a full place of ‘I am who I am and all that I am.’ Everyone has insecurities and that’s okay. Because we’re also growing as people—we aren’t the same person our whole lives. So we have to keep adapting to accepting ourselves as we grow.”

Felt Cute, Might Delete Later

Love it or hate it, you can’t ignore social media—at least not as an emerging gen-Z icon in a virtually connected global community. Ramakrishnan, who has faced her fair share of cyber trolling (in the form of razor emojis that flooded her comments along with judgement on her acting skills) shares a love-hate relationship with the digital culture of hyper-sharing. The actor, who is thankful to the internet for her breakout acting gig, can very well differentiate between online criticism and harassment, and she breaks it down: “When somebody is critiquing the show to say, ‘Hopefully, in the future seasons, Devi will grow to love her own culture,’ that’s great criticism because I get to reflect on it. Then there’s pure hate where people are not putting down the characters, but the actual actors. I think we forget that actors are actual people.”

“Sometimes I love posting content to show people like, ‘Hey, look at this cool thing I did,’ or ‘Look at this funny photo of me when I was a kid.’ But then sometimes it’s like, ‘Okay, this sucks. I want to delete all this,’” she reflects, in her signature relatable tone. How does the young star deal with the haters, then? A thick skin, some humour and a bit of distraction, the self-proclaimed workaholic confesses. “If there are people out there that hate puppies, then there’s going to be people out there that don’t like me, and that’s okay. But I love puppies and puppies love me,” Ramakrishnan shrugs.

Beyond Virtue Signalling

Whether by way of belonging to a generation that is especially sensitive to the socio-political climate of the world or of her newly-garnered celebrity status that grants her a unique platform, Ramakrishnan regularly lends her voice to human rights causes. Considering she is a global ambassador for Plan International Canada, a children’s rights and gender equality platform, as well as an ardent activist for skinclusivity, the second wave of COVID-19 in India, Black Lives Matter, anti-cyber trolling, and authentic representation of minority groups on-screen, it’s no surprise that the teen made it to TIME’s next 100 most influential people for 2021. “I don’t think I’ve been super passionate about just the one cause because a lot of causes I advocate for have intersections. For example, racial and gender equality both have overlapping factors. I would say basic human rights should always be the top priority,” shares the actor, who recently switched her major from theatre to human rights and equity studies at Toronto’s York University.

Despite her diverse interests, the budding humanitarian’s efforts towards championing diversity in Hollywood and the gaming world are particularly noteworthy. Extending the impact of her TV show in fighting colourism and securing a complex, nuanced exploration of the South Asian community on-screen, the gaming enthusiast recently partnered with Gillette Venus for a Skinclusive Summer Line that adds more than 250 skin representations—freckles, scars, tattoos, diverse tones—to one of her all-time favourite video games, Animal Crossing.

A Twerp at Heart

Ramakrishnan, who counts Billie Eilish and Greta Thunberg as inspirational gen-Z figures, refuses to be boxed within the stereotypical parameters of her generation—TikTok, the peculiar usage of emojis, lower-caps texting, or middle partings. She’s so much more, she relays. “People who are gen-Z don’t necessarily care about being gen-Z as much as they care about being themselves.”

Though the need to document this said authenticity on social media 24/7 does lend an ironic aspect to this age group, the teen confesses, “The irony is so real. There’s a 100 per cent of this ‘I don’t care’ energy, but also so much of our self worth depends on it. Especially with quarantine, when social media has only grown more legs and has become an even stronger monster. We have so much validation coming through it which is just wild.”

Now that Ramakrishnan has established her resistance to all sorts of labels, be it that of an actor, artist, activist, gen-Z icon, or ice-cream lover—where does she derive her core identity from? “They all intersect. Being an activist comes from being able to be and speak out as loudly as I can because of being an actor. And being an actor stems from being able to sing and do all these other arts that I originally liked when I was a child. It’s all me.” If she still had to go with one label, for the sake of it? “Maitreyi the twerp,” she confirms.

This article originally appeared in Vogue India’s July 2021 Issue