Mindy Kaling’s Series Starring An Ontario Teen Finally Drops On Netflix This Month

New actress alert! Mindy Kaling's Netflix show Never Have I Ever stars up-and-coming teen Maitreyi Ramakrishnan from Mississauga, Ontario. The ten-episode series premieres later this month and it’s definitely something to look forward to. 

Back in July 2019, we learned that The Office star had a new comedy series in the works and cast a young Canadian actress as the lead character. 

Maitreyi Ramakrishnan is a 17-year-old Tamil-Canadian who was born and raised in Mississauga and attends Meadowvale Secondary School, per Flare. 

She will play Devi, an overachieving high school student with a short temper that often gets her into tricky situations. 

Ramakrishnan stars opposite Poorna Jagannathan, Richa Moorjani, Benjamin Norris, Adam Shapiro, and Ramona Young.

Showbiz Cheat Sheet claims that Kaling created the series along with Lang Fisher, who has also worked on The Mindy Project, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and 30 Rock.

According to IMDb, the show's plot is based on Kaling's own childhood and follows the "complicated life of a modern-day first-generation Indian American teenage girl". 

The Mindy Project star posted an open casting call online last year which landed the attention of aspiring actress Ramakrishnan. She ended up beating out 15,000 other applicants. 

IMDb notes that this is the 17-year-old's very first on-screen role.

In an exclusive interview with Narcity, Ramakrishnan shared that the very long audition process eventually ended with her getting a life-changing phone call from Kaling and Lang while hanging out in her GTA home. 

Now, the two are pals who often post snaps together with Ramakrishnan even calling Kaling her "mom" and "fairy godmother" to her over 15,000 Instagram followers.

Ramakrishnan told Narcity that her goal is to attend York University to study theatre and still plans to go down that path even after landing the role with Netflix. It looks like she's already two steps ahead of the game.

In an interview with Flare, the actress shared that this role is important to her because she "didn’t see many South Asian role models in film when I was growing up. And I’m a firm believer that if you don’t see what you want [to see] in the media or in the world in general, go be it. That’s your time to make that space."

PopSugar claims that Kaling feels a similar way, writing that she had a "desire to tell a story about the kinds of characters she would have related to when she was a teenager, but that don't get portrayed very often."

You can catch Never Have I Ever on Netflix on April 27. Watch the date announcement trailer below.