- Priyanka Kedia calls out Hollywood stereotypes
- “Our identity is not the punchline”
- Why Indian characters need to be complex
- Priyanka trained in Bharatanatyam for the film
- Maitreyi Ramakrishnan adds another voice
For Priyanka Kedia, the problem with Hollywood's portrayal of South Asians was never simply a lack of representation. It was what happened when Indians finally appeared on screen.
While interacting with Hindustan Times, British actor of Indian origin, who stars alongside Never Have I Ever actor Maitreyi Ramakrishnan in Netflix's Best of the Best, says she grew up watching South Asian characters repeatedly become the joke.
“We all have this common experience of growing up seeing ourselves represented as the butt of the joke,” Kedia said.
That experience informs how she looks at her latest film, a coming-of-age comedy set around the competitive world of collegiate Bollywood-fusion dance. For Kedia, its significance comes from allowing its Indian and South Asian characters to exist without making their cultural identity the central punchline.
“To have a film where our identity is not the joke, it’s not the punchline, but just who we are and the things that we go through have nothing to do with it, that’s important,” she said.
“We’re allowed to be messy”
Kedia's point is not that South Asian characters should stop being visibly South Asian. It is that their heritage does not have to explain every part of their personality.
In Best of the Best, the characters can be funny, flawed, ambitious, emotional and complicated while their cultural background remains part of who they are rather than the entire story.
“That’s not the central part of who we are as people,” Kedia said. “We’re allowed to be messy, we’re allowed to be great, we’re allowed to be silly, we’re allowed to be complex and that is really important.”
For her, the comedy also works because it is not dependent on an audience laughing at an Indian character simply for being Indian.
“And the joy and the comedy it has is universal,” she added. “It’s not just, ‘Oh, you’re Indian, haha’.”
That distinction is central to Kedia's perspective on Hollywood representation. Being visible on screen matters, but so does what characters are allowed to do once they get there.
“We had someone watching our mudras”
The film's cultural detail also extends into its dance sequences.
Kedia and Ramakrishnan were not classically trained dancers, but both underwent intensive preparation for the film. Kedia specifically trained in Bharatanatyam, a classical Indian dance form, for her role.
The production brought in a choreography team to ensure the performances did not simply use familiar Bollywood-style movements as shorthand for Indian culture.
“We went through a lot of intense training,” Kedia said. “I danced a little bit growing up but neither of us are classically trained, but we had an amazing choreography team.”
She recalled having someone closely monitor their mudras, or hand gestures used in Indian classical dance.
“We had someone who was watching our mudras, with a hawklike focus to make sure that everything felt accurately represented because that was really important to us,” she said.
For Kedia, the process was demanding but meaningful. “It was a really beautiful experience,” she said.
Maitreyi Ramakrishnan sees representation moving forward
Ramakrishnan, who became widely known through Never Have I Ever, also spoke about the changing landscape for South Asian representation.
She acknowledged that earlier portrayals did not always reflect the experiences of South Asians, while arguing that even imperfect visibility helped create space for what came later.
She described newer projects as building on the work of those who came before and said she hopes the progress continues to accelerate.
Her own experience also gives that discussion another perspective. Ramakrishnan was 18 when Never Have I Ever premiered during the COVID-19 pandemic and has spoken about suddenly being perceived by millions of people around the world at a very young age.
But in Best of the Best, the focus returns to a broader question: what happens when Indian characters no longer need to explain themselves before they can simply be characters?
Priyanka Kedia's Indian roots
Kedia is a 24-year-old British actor of Indian origin whose credits include Everything to Me (2024) and Disclosure Day.
Her perspective on representation comes from seeing that gap between identity and stereotype from both sides of the screen.
With Best of the Best, she is part of a film that puts South Asian characters at the center while allowing their personalities, relationships, ambitions and imperfections to drive the story.
For Kedia, that may be the bigger shift: Indian identity can be present without having to carry the joke.
