Last week, Mindy Kaling topped People With Money magazine’s annual list of highest-paid actresses. Starting off as Kelly Kapoor, a side character in The Office in 2005, Kaling has made $58 million in the last 12 months. Meanwhile, Kunal Nayyar, who plays Raj Koothrappali on The Big Bang Theory , is the fourth highest-paid actor in television, earning $22 million between June 2015 and June 2016. He is only $ 3.5 million behind co-star Jim Parsons (Sheldon Cooper on the show), who headed the list. As for everyone’s favourite Indian American comedian Aziz Ansari, his debut hosting Saturday Night Live on January 21 — on the night of Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration — saw the highest number of viewers for the show since November 2016.
For every Priyanka Chopra or Rahul Khanna making headlines with their TV shows, it also takes a Kal Penn of Harold & Kumar fame, or an Aasif Mandvi on The Daily Show sticking around for more than a decade to change the status quo. Mandvi summed it up best when he once said, “When you’re brown and Indian, you get offered a lot of doctor roles.”
But Indians on American television sure have come a long way from Apu in The Simpsons with his heavily parodied accent and clichéd department store. Also, as the narrative shifts beyond fresh-off-the-boat stereotypes to include colour-blind roles, casting notices don’t necessarily mention ethnicity. So we have good reason to cheer, as these Indian-origin actors who are making an impact on American television talk to us about going beyond stereotypes and being a source of inspiration.
Arjun Gupta, 29
Claim to fame: The Magicians
In the country recently to shoot his first Bollywood film, The Hungry , alongside Naseeruddin Shah, Arjun Gupta is a little anxious about his broken Hindi. “But I’ve always followed my instinct,” he says, adding that it was a series of small steps that propelled him into stardom. From a debut opposite Uma Thurman in Motherhood to a recurring role as Sam in Nurse Jackie , it has been a slow yet steady rise. Now, he is one of the leads on Syfy’s The Magicians , a fantasy show he describes as “ Harry Potter for adults”. “Most roles for Indian men were subservient, beta male roles that propagate stereotypes in a limited scope,” says Gupta. “Everyone’s in a race to be second-best at something that already works, instead of bringing in new experiences.” Diversity, he says, needs to start at the planning and writing stages. “Collaborative friction is the need of the hour, because that’s when sparks fly.”
He has started a podcast with comedian Akaash Singh called American Desis , and invites guests from the diaspora to talk about their passions. He’s also promoting desi talent with his theatre company in LA, where people are invited to tell their own stories.
Utkarsh Ambudkar, 33
Claim to fame: The Mindy Project
Ambudkar always knew he wanted to entertain. With a degree in Fine Arts from NYU, he got himself an agent and spent his days doing off-Broadway plays and his nights winning rap battles. After a few TV commercials, and a pilot for a show that never took off, he got his first break with the role of Donald in Pitch Perfect in 2012. “Things took off after that, and people embraced me,” he recalls.
The role caught Mindy Kaling’s eye and he was soon playing her character’s younger brother, Rishi, on The Mindy Project .
“That was my ‘kismet’ moment, when the universe conspired to make things happen for me!” The best part of the breakout role? “At no point was I characterised as a South Asian. I was just playing a regular guy,” he says. But that doesn’t mean he is in the safe zone. “While I still get called in for mostly Indian-specific roles (the geeky techie or the ‘emasculated second lead’ stereotype), I am fighting to find roles that are not ethnicity-specific,” says the actor, who to actors Usman Ali and Manish Dayal for inspiration. “Ten years ago, all of us were fighting for the same role, but now we can go out and encourage each other.”
Melanie Chandra, 31
Claim to fame: Code Black
Melanie Chandra got her first break with a part in the sitcom, Rules of Engagement and then a larger role in the Jack Black comedy, The Brink . In 2015, she landed a role as a series regular in the CBS show, Code Black , where she plays a lesbian, Indian-origin doctor.
“My parents were immigrants and we come from humble means, so our focus was always on education.” Which is why she got a degree in mechanical engineering and a job in New York City before trying her hand at acting.
“About 90% of the roles I’ve been cast in were not written for an Indian. Code Black was written for a Filipino girl, NBC’s Parenthood role was for an American,” says Chandra.
Having looked up to South-Asian actors like Aziz Ansari, Mindy Kaling and Sleepy Hollow star Janina Gavankar, she hopes she can inspire others.
She adds that she is also working on a passion project as a writer and producer, with a focus on women in technology.
“There aren’t enough compelling female leads on TV and I do want to provide a voice to the women working in technology, whose stories have not been told,” she says.
Ravi Patel, 38
Claim to fame: Meet the Patels
“I sort of just fell into it,” is how Patel describes his career in show business. After years of being “the funny guy” in his community, he was asked to emcee an art festival his sister was producing, and was hooked. He gave up his career in business for comedy sketches and parts in shows like Scrubs and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia , as well as appearances in movies like Transformers , all without a proper agent. About the tougher side of being an Indian-American actor, he says it’s inevitable, when you’re starting off, to be stereotyped. “You have to earn your way out of the stereotype and, in the process, show your talent,” says Patel. The role of John Stamos’s sidekick in Grandfathered , for example, was rewritten for him after his audition. “There is no way this would have happened in the beginning of my career,” he admits, adding that stereotypes break when the creation process becomes collaborative.
While he agrees that Meet The Patels was a runaway hit because it looked at the funnier side of Indian-Americans struggling to find love, he clarifies that he is now married. And no, she isn’t Indian, and he didn’t need his parents’ help finding her!
