Broadcasting: Maya Sondhi
British Asian actor and writer Maya Sondhi shares her perspective on race, representation, motherhood and making meaningful TV in a risk-averse industry.
If you read my latest post, you’ll know that I’ve been thinking a lot about my own relationship with confidence, so having this conversation with Maya was an absolute joy. Not least because she started the chat by sharing something lovely her agent had said about me (thank you, Nick), but also because of the way she talks about having confidence in and celebrating our identities.
Discussing her RTS award-winning ITV show DI Ray, we talk about Maya’s connection to British Asian culture; how she’s learning to let go of guilt around her Indianness feeling “diluted” and, instead, honouring the richness that is being British Asian. I don’t think we speak about that enough; finding peace in the point at which multiple perspectives come together, rather than seeking meaning in each one individually. We also talk about Maya’s acting career - yes, you do recognise her as Line of Duty’s Maneet Bindra and Citizen Khan’s Shazia - as well as her desire to make watching TV a communal experience, and the importance of empowering underrepresented voices in the industry.
‘It makes my heart sing when my daughter points at someone on the telly and says, “she looks like me!”’
Ever since I’ve been in this industry, people have told me that “it’s not like it used to be”. As someone who's been working in the industry for over twenty years, what’s your perspective on that?
I think there was a period where there was a massive focus on diversity and inclusion, and it felt really exciting to be a female writer of colour from Birmingham. Now it feels like those doors have closed. There’s less money and no one wants to take any risks. And, as people of colour, especially women, we’re seen as risks. I know someone who had a project in paid development with a broadcaster and they had a list of female writers for the writers’ room, all from varying backgrounds and with varying levels of experience (as a room should be!), but - in the end - the commissioner decided to go for a white, middle-class, male writer because he was a “safe bet”.
People like Jack Thorne and Jed Mercurio will continue to be seen as safe bets because they’re repeatedly given the opportunities. They’re brilliant, by the way, but they’re trusted white men. Or, more accurately, they’re trusted because they are white men. How’s anyone else supposed to have a go? If we do get a shot, then it feels like the stakes are so much higher and it’s much easier to “fail”. I worked on something with a black female director who was so talented but she just wasn’t given the support, so succeeding (which she did) felt like it happened against all the odds. The industry should be lifting and empowering those of us who are from underrepresented backgrounds so that we can grow and move onto the next thing, but I feel like that doesn’t happen.
Do you feel supported?
I definitely feel like I have had to prove myself more than others. I feel like I have to prove why I am in a room. It’s not because I’m Asian and female; I can write and act and I have a story to tell. I remember feeling so much pressure when I got the green light from Polly Hill for DI Ray. Like the show had to stand out so much against all the other crime dramas because it was written by me and has a South Asian woman as the lead. I was so aware of that. Working on that first series was the most stressed I’ve ever been. Especially because I was writing it in lockdown with a newborn and a three year old. My husband could work from home and my parents came down from Birmingham, but it was mental.
That’s why I’ll never slag off telly. There is so much effort that goes into it. You have to respect that every single person on that set is just doing their job. No, it’s not always going to be good or to everyone’s taste, but you have to respect how hard it is to make anything at all. I also think it’s very easy to get caught up in an industry bubble and become snobby about TV. We forget that TV is made for normal people. I was sat in a cafe with my friend Nav - who played Nish in Eastenders - and this big burly guy in a Hi Vis jacket came up to ask for a photo. I thought it was so sweet. Characters in shows become part of people’s lives. It’s a comfort thing. A lot of people need that in order to not feel lonely. I think that working in this industry makes us forget the power of telly sometimes.
What do you think the power of telly is?
I watch TV to switch off, but also to feel connected. I watch Motherland to feel less alone! Or, if I’ve been writing all day or looking after my kids, I want something easy. Last night I was going to watch Forensics: The Real CSI but ended up watching Bridesmaids instead because I just wanted to have a laugh.
I’ve always loved TV. I grew up with British sitcoms like Keeping Up Appearances, Fawlty Towers, Hi-de-Hi!, 2point4children. We didn’t have tablets or anything so I think TV felt much more exciting. The way we consume content now is so different. I am trying to explain that to my eight year old son at the moment; how if you missed a programme that was it, you’d missed it. There was no endless scrolling or clicking on and off things. We used to read and play so much more too. I see people watching telly on their phones now and I get why, but I don’t feel like that’s the best way to consume because half your attention is elsewhere. It’s that whole dumbing down thing - making shows that are less complex because they know people are scrolling at the same time. Nowadays, the marker of good telly is when you don’t want to even touch your phone.
As a mother, are you worried about the impact screens are having on kids?
Yeah, and adults! I’ve actually started switching mine off in the evenings and not turning it on again until the morning. The other day I got so excited because I saw a kid reading an actual paper book on the tube, even though all the adults around him were on their phones. Whenever my kids tell me they’re bored I say, that’s fine - be bored - and then find something else to do. Play, read or draw. My friend gave me a really nice piece of advice about this, actually. He said, make watching TV with your children a shared experience, a communal thing that you all do together, as opposed to a distraction. That’s what we try to do. We’ve been watching the Gladiators reboot and my son loved Ludwig and Only Murders In The Building too. I also watch a lot of children’s shows, which are amazing, like Bluey and Horrible Histories. I did a week in a writers’ room for my friend who is adapting a children’s book for TV and it was so joyful. Not everything has to be high brow or dark to be good. The darkest thing I remember watching as a kid was when PJ was blinded by a paintball in Byker Grove!
Growing up, did you always want to act?
No, I wanted to be a child psychiatrist! At eight, most of my friends wanted to be a vet, but my heroine was a family friend and leading psychiatrist called Linda Winkley. I was so interested in her job! It wasn’t until I started doing community stuff at Midlands Art Centre and auditioned for National Youth Theatre that I even considered that acting could be a career. So I applied for both university and drama school. I remember getting into LAMDA and calling the admissions people at Cambridge University to tell them I wouldn’t be attending my interview. I’ll never forget my parents’ faces when I made that call. They were like “yep, of course, whatever you like!” but I could see the fear underneath that.
I’d be worried about my kids going into the industry now. I wouldn’t put them off, but I would say that they have to have a viable back up plan, something that they love but that can also bring a bit of financial security. I trained as an English Foreign Language teacher. I needed something that would fulfill me and I love languages. For most actors, so much time is spent doing thankless work - long hours and bad pay. I think you need things to make you feel like you’re worthy.
What is that for you? What makes you feel worthy?
Writing. When I found writing, I felt fulfilled. I’d always loved creative writing as a child and as an adult, I find myself collecting characters. I love people. I love thinking about different characters and exploring what happens if we put them together. I’m also sick of seeing shitty roles! There are so many shows with white leads and then one-dimensional side characters who are played by black and brown actors. The characters will be perfunctory. Or there will be a character who was so clearly written through a white lens, played by someone who isn’t white. I think we should acknowledge the background of actors and characters. We aren’t all interchangeable. It’s possible to write a character of Nigerian heritage that was born and raised in London without being heavy-handed about it. It’s in the way the character is written; in the little nods to the fact that that character will have a different perspective. One of the things I didn’t like about One Day was how they essentially ignored Ambika Mod’s Indian heritage. I think it’s so brilliant for the British South Asian community that we had her as the lead, so why not make it more brilliant by making it feel more textured? It felt like a wasted opportunity.
That’s one of the things you do so well with DI Ray. Yes, it’s a police procedural, but one that’s wrapped up in race and identity politics too. I think that’s because you’ve approached the British South Asian experience through Rachita’s character, rather than trying to tack it on afterwards or ignoring it all together. Was that a conscious decision?
Definitely. Our identities are our superpowers. I tell writers I am mentoring never to apologise for or explain their background because then it gives other people permission to do the same. We need to be confident in ourselves. I’ve definitely struggled with that. Growing up, I used to wear my hair really curly and tell people I was Brazilian because it was unsexy to be Indian.
A big thing for me which I’ve only recently made peace with is a sense of guilt around a lack of connection to India. My mum is Indian but was born in Kenya and then came to Birmingham when she was six, so she can speak Punjabi but never actually lived in India. My dad was taught by Irish monks in India so has amazing English. I’m married to a Lancastrian who is half Irish and I can’t speak any Indian languages! For ages, I felt like my Indianness was being diluted and I saw that as a failure. I don’t have a connection to India because I am from here. I love British Asian culture, but I don’t have an emotional connection to Indian culture. Making that distinction has been really helpful in allowing me to let go of some of that guilt. Some white people have more of a connection to India than I do. I was at a yoga class the other day full of white people chanting Sanskrit. I was the most Indian person there yet I felt the most out of place!
I think so many second and third generation immigrants will resonate with that feeling of guilt; that nagging sensation that we should somehow be more connected to a country that we might have never even lived in. How can we make things easier for the next generation?
I think about this a lot, especially because my kids are mixed race. I took my daughter to a show recently and most of the audience were mixed. It was amazing. Having multiple perspectives helps us to empathise because we know what it’s like to be a bit of a chameleon. I would be so interested to know how differently you and I would be perceived if we sat here in traditional Egyptian and Indian clothes and spoke with an accent. I remember in my twenties I would get into black cabs and the drivers would be so racist, but - because I have a British accent and wear what I wear - they’d be like, “you’re different though, you’re not like them lot who have six kids”.
We need to try and recognise how special differences can be, rather than feeling like we need to dilute parts of ourselves. It makes my heart sing when my daughter points at someone on the telly and says, “she looks like me!”. Last year, my husband got me a birthday card with an Indian woman on the front and it meant so much to me because I never had stuff like that growing up. I asked my son recently how he would describe himself and he said, “I think I am brown white, or white brown”. I love the simplicity of that so much.