Maitreyi Ramakrishnan would have some wise words for her younger self if she’d have known how the show “Never Have I Ever” would have changed her life.
Ramakrishnan — who stars as Devi Vishwakumar — chatted with ET Canada’s Keshia Chanté alongside her co-stars Darren Barnet and Jaren Lewison ahead of season 4’s release.
A synopsis for the much-loved series reads, “The complicated life of a first-generation Indian-American teenage girl, inspired by Mindy Kaling’s own childhood.”
As Chanté questioned what she would say to herself if she could go back to when she first auditioned for the part, Ramakrishnan responded, “I feel like for me, I definitely didn’t think I was going to get it just because of like where I was at my life at that time.
“Plus, like, you know, just not being someone who knew they wanted to be an actor. So, if I could go back in time and tell myself… my 17 year old self would probably just like, punch me and be like, ‘You’re weird, you’re crazy, you’re some psychotic, brown woman, please get away from me.’ So I wouldn’t say that,” the Canadian actress added.
READ MORE: Maitreyi Ramakrishnan Explains How ‘To All The Boys’ Helped ‘Never Have I Ever’ Become ‘A Thing’
She went on, “I’d probably say something more reassuring, like, ‘Hey, like, life’s stressful right now, but you’re okay. Be nicer to yourself right now.’ That’s what I’d say.”
Elsewhere in the chat, Ramakrishnan said of what the show means to her, “I mean, like we have such great jobs where, like, for some people a job is a job. And that’s totally respectable, right?
“But we are so privileged to be able to do the thing that we love without worry, you know, we get to do this amazing job. So that’s such a huge, huge gift.”
“At a young age, I get to find out what I want to do with the rest of my life when a lot of people are still figuring that out, which is totally fine and acceptable. But there’s so many different gifts.
“And then, of course, the people that come along with the journey and then the bigger than ourselves impact that the show means so much to so many people around the world and is changing what our expectations are when we’re consuming media, when we’re consuming film and TV. So there’s so many different levels.”
“Never Have I Ever” returns to Netflix for its fourth and final season on June 8.
