Maitreyi Ramakrishnan

Some Lesser Known Facts About Maitreyi Ramakrishnan

• Maitreyi Ramakrishnan is of Sri Lankan Tamil descent. Her family came to Canada as refugees after the Sri Lankan Civil War (1983-2009).

• Being raised in a multicultural environment, Maitreyi was trained in both Bharatanatyam and Ballet dance forms. She has also learned to play the piano.

• When she was in grade 10, she began acting in school plays; her first role was of ‘Urleen’ from the play “Footloose.” When she reached grade 12, she began writing, directing, and producing plays; as an assignment from her drama classes.

• Simultaneously, she became a part of a Jazz band and played the piano in the band.

• Because of her love for Disney and Marvel comics, Maitreyi wanted to make her career in the field of animation, but when she was in the last year of her school, she decided to become an actress. Talking about it, she said,
  

  In our after school plays, our after school musicals and at first I just did it as something like for fun and then I realized it was something that I could dedicate myself to for the rest of my life and I would be really happy with it”

• She was a part of student walkout protests against Doug Ford’s proposition for education cuts in 2019.

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We may not be able to vote right now, but we are still doing something and that’s what matters ✊ #studentssayno (? @zoe.p1 )

A post shared by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan (@maitreyiramakrishnan) on Apr 5, 2019 at 4:26pm PDT

• Mindy Kaling chose Maitreyi out of 15,000 candidates who applied for the open casting call for the show, Never Have I Ever in 2019.  For her auditions for the show, she created a tape at a local library using her mother’s camera with her best friend who insisted on her give the audition for the show. She was asked to send four more videos later, after which, her screen test took place in Los Angeles, and eventually, she made it as the lead character in the show.

  

• Her casting on the show garnered popularity from media for the nature of open casting call and because of her Tamil Canadian Identity.

• In 2019, The Today Show named her ‘one of the eighteen Groundbreakers,’ a list of girls breaking down barriers and changing the world.