Maitreyi Ramakrishnan: “I think I’m living in one of my best timelines”

“Okay, you need to do this,” Maitreyi Ramakrishnan says, and I lean forward, half-expecting to hear about a TikTok trend that had bypassed me completely. “Take at least two friends. Take one friend. I don’t know how many friends you have. Take yourself, I don’t care.” Gen Z’s really starting to embrace solo dates, I think to myself. “You draw a pattern on a canvas,” Ramakrishnan continues, “you pick the yarn colours you want and you get this gun.” Her eyes are gleaming with excitement now. “Then, you poke it into this canvas piece, pull the trigger and it goes ‘drrrrrr’. The gun will keep pelting yarn and on the other side, it’ll fluff out like a rug. Rug tufting is so fun and therapeutic.”

It’s heartening to know that the 23-year-old actor, who has just completed an undergraduate degree in human rights and equity studies, while travelling as a charity ambassador for a children’s rights organisation and shooting for new projects, is like any other 20-something, swapping doomscrolling for grandma hobbies like gardening, bird-watching and mahjong. Her current obsessions also include crocheting, candle-making and hand-­painting pottery—all activities, I note, that require the use of both hands. It’s a habit that stems from playing video games at a young age. “That’s the beauty about gaming. You have to pay attention. You have to be actively engaged with it or you’re going to miss something,” Ramakrishnan says. “Take crocheting. You could do it while you’re watching something, but you will start forgetting how many rounds you’ve done and now you’ve messed up. So I like to do things that use my brain actively, and take me away from the screen or social media.”

It’s why, despite making her debut as the star of Never Have I Ever in 2020, Ramakrishnan has happily lent her voice to animated series and films like My Little Pony, Big Mouth and Turning Red (2022). She also appeared in Freakier Friday and The Twits this year and has the indie film Slanted set to release in 2026. The actor refers to her voiceover credits as “literally a dream” for a kid who grew up almost exclusively on animated films, particularly anime. Part of that is due to her dad (“I don’t think there’s anybody more excited for Zootopia 2 than him. And his hero is Po from Kung Fu Panda”), and part of it is because she found it easier to connect with those characters. “This is sad, but growing up, I could relate more to a cartoon dog than white Disney Channel kids.”

Instead, Ramakrishnan saw herself in the movies that were always playing in her Tamil-Canadian household during her childhood. “I’m a big fan of Pokkiri. What a great soundtrack. And Chandramukhi, I’ve always loved.” Now that she’s working in the film industry, I ask how her tastes have evolved or shifted. She’s currently enjoying dipping into Korean and Thai cinema but is allergic to watching “whatever hot thing” every actor around her is obsessing over. “I don’t want to watch some artsy-fartsy film because some film bro recommended it to me.”