Exclusive: Charithra Chandran broke out as Edwina Sharma in Netflix's hit legal series bridgerton is against ideas in the entertainment industry that he feels are pitting people of color against each other.
Speaking to Deadline days before his debut West End play wrapped, Chandran said he had “never considered myself a role model” but that “a lot of young girls follow me on social media. I definitely feel like I'm a role model because I'm a role model.” responsibility. “
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including actors slumdog millionaire star Dev Patel, brooklyn nine nines Melissa Fumero and Aubrey Plaza have spoken out in the past about the limited space available to people of color on television and film.
For Chandran, this idea is being deliberately propagated by industry gatekeepers to pit people of color against each other. “This is not a zero-sum game,” she said. “You become so focused on fighting yourself that you become distracted by the people who are oppressing you, when all other people of color are doing is adding more chairs. They have imposed the idea that there is only one seat at the table.
Since gaining stardom, Chandran has chosen to speak out about colorism and the importance of diversity time and again. “I think that’s the burden of representation, right?” she added. “It is very rare to be expected to represent everyone in a community, rather than just an individual. The goal is for representation to be so nuanced and consistent that individual portrayals carry such burdens. It's something I try not to take on, but I have it, and it's a very important responsibility that I take very seriously.”
Chandran first appeared on screen in Prime Video's spy series. alex rider and truly established herself among Shonda Rhimes bridgerton She plays the younger sister of Kate Sharma, played by Simone Ashley. It's shaping up to be quite a year for the 27-year-old actress, who was born in Scotland to Tamil-Indian parents. According to Deadline, she is scheduled to head out to shoot an unreleased film the next day, and is currently working as an associate producer on her debut film. song of the sun godthe TV series in which she also stars is ending Teenage Armageddon Instructions in the west end.
She said acting in the play was “the most fun I've ever had” and that it was a “challenging and rewarding experience” that reminded her of her days doing theater at Oxford University.
“Introducing a new generation”
A lone woman contrasts with promotional poster polaroids and graffiti and a pastel pink bedroom set Teenage Armageddon Instructions It's a frank tale of sadness centered around a resourceful teenage character played by Chandran. Chandran's sister dies in a darkly humorous accident involving Yorkshire pudding. The play is based on author Rosie Day's one-woman play of the same name, and is in partnership with teen mental health charity stem4, of which Day is an ambassador.
Tickets for the play, which closes on Sunday, start at £15 ($18.80), unusually low for the West End, but Chandran said this was a deliberate decision by producers to attract a more diverse audience. It was revealed that it was. “The average theater audience in this country is probably older, white, and upper middle class. And we wanted to repurpose that to introduce a new generation to the value of theater.”
This month also saw the premiere of Chandran's first film role released on Prime Video. how to date billy walshwhere she played opposite Tanner Buchanan, heart stopper Starring Sebastian Croft. For Chandran, playing her lead role for the first time was an important moment in her career. “I learned a lot from that movie about the leadership aspect of being at the top of the call sheet. It was my first movie and will always be important to me,” she enthuses. Ta. “As I get older, I think the opportunities to act and appear in movies like that will become fewer and fewer.” [in which she plays a teenager]” During promotions, Chandran posted on Instagram that she and Croft unknowingly shared a stage in a film production when they were children. Chitty Chitty Bang Bangshe described the moment as “crazy, crazy synchronicity.”
Chandran seems to like the word “synchronicity,” and he uses it again to explain how he got into the TV version, directed by Shankari Chandran. song of the sun god, a television series produced by none other than Synchronicity Films, and will be her first project as an associate producer. Her involvement with the show, which is set against the backdrop of Sri Lanka's civil war, began when she said in an interview with Teen Vogue that her dream project was “about the Sri Lankan Tamil crisis.” The interview was read by the daughter of Olivia Hetrid, who was writing the series at the time, and the two soon got in touch.
“We realized that we were very aligned in what we wanted this project to be,” said Chandran, who is himself a Tamilian. “Even the fact that Shankari and I have the same last name should have made it so.”
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