5 Things We Learned from Actor Sarayu Blue

When Sarayu Blue joined us on Zoom, she proudly displayed a T-shirt that she had custom made. It read: “Casting thought I did a great job, but ultimately they’re going in a different direction.” If you’ve ever worked in a creative industry, you probably laughed...and then winced. It’s painfully funny and showcases Sarayu’s sharp sense of humor. Actually, several things Sarayu said during our conversation should be on T-shirts, including: “If you want community, you better let people fucking call;” “Choose to have a voice;” and “I love the soft life.” We’d buy all of them!

Director Julie Anne Robinson knows firsthand why Sarayu’s words land so well. The two worked together when Sarayu was cast in the pilot Julie Anne produced with Amy Poehler called I Feel Bad, a role she still calls one of the best experiences of her career. What made it so meaningful? She finally got to play a messy, funny, flawed woman. More often than not, says Sarayu, women from marginalized communities are asked to play one-dimensional characters who only serve the lead’s story. On I Feel Bad, she got to inhabit a fully-dimensional lead character, and that kind of opportunity is still far too rare.

Along with being a talented actor and a black belt in Taekwondo, is there anything Sarayu can’t do? “What I’m not good at is not being real,” she says. But we think it’s a superpower. Sarayu has an ability to distill complex and honest conversations into unforgettable one-liners. We came away from our conversation entertained and inspired.

Here are five things we learned from Sarayu.

When people ask Sarayu whether she prefers comedy or drama, she says, acting is acting. But comedy? That’s personal.

She describes comedy as her “love language.” To this day, making her dad laugh is one of her favorite activities. “He’s got such a great, full belly laugh, and you know, my mom is wicked funny. I mean, just sharp as hell, so I think so much of who I am really did come from them.”

But she adds that laughter is also a cathartic way to experience and survive life’s challenges. Comedy gives us permission to acknowledge how messy and absurd being human really is. “I love how in comedy you get to do it all,” she says. “You get to address how heartbreaking it is to be a person, and you get to laugh at how heartbreaking it is to be a person.”

It’s this duality that she embraces both in her craft and her life. But she quickly adds that it doesn’t mean she avoids difficulties: “I feel my hard moments, but I also love laughing at [the] ridiculous.”

Sarayu grew up in an immigrant, South Asian family. Her parents, both academics, taught her about the importance of community, something she worries we’re replacing with digital connection.

“We feel like we’re in a community but there’s an active part of it that we’ve lost touch with,” she says. “I think there are people who really practice community, but it’s a really intentional choice. It’s certainly not our norm in this country. I mean, you don’t even call someone without texting first, right? That’s considered like egregious. Guess what? If you want community, you better let people fucking call.”

We couldn’t help laughing at her assessment because it’s so true. We schedule phone calls, text before knocking, and get updates from our friends by scrolling their feeds. Sarayu’s reminder is simple: real relationships require intentional effort and don’t be scared to pick up the phone.

“The more time we’re on this earth,” she says, “the more our facade disappears, which is what I find to be the most attractive quality in a person. The friends I’m closest to are the ones who are honest with themselves, because if you’re honest with yourself, then I know you can be honest with me. I think that that’s who we feel safest with, right?”

Sarayu is clearly drawn to authenticity in people, which when it comes to social media creates an intrinsic battle in herself. For actors today, social media is an important tool, but she says she’s still figuring out how to protect her heart online, even deleting social apps sometimes. (Yes, Sarayu, is just like the rest of us when it comes to the perils of social media!) “I think it’s stealing hours from my life,” she says. But she adds that she doesn’t want to disconnect from the world, instead she wants to use her platform to offer helpful information or joyful posts.

Sarayu believes everyone can make a difference. Sometimes it’s as simple as listening to a stranger’s story or showing up to help a friend or encouraging people to register to vote. “Social impact has so many scales,” she says. “I don’t think people realize when they say things like ‘I don’t like to get political’ that that’s not a reality…I mean, particularly not for people from marginalized communities who are experiencing enormous dire circumstances that are just cruel and violent.”

But Sarayu recognizes that she’s not entirely sure of that balance. She’s not advocating to be loud for the sake of it. It’s about choosing not to tune out the world and choosing to use your voice when you need to.

Sarayu points out most actors are barely able to support a middle-class lifestyle, and getting a second job comes with its own set of challenges.

“For an actor who actually has a shot at working regularly, it’s very difficult to find a job you can leave at any moment for an audition. That level of flexibility is very rare,” she says. She recognizes that she has had a certain level of success: “I got to do I Feel Bad. I got to work with Nicole Kidman on Expats… I just filmed [a show] that I love called Unaccustomed Earth. I’ve gotten some extraordinary opportunities, and it’s still scary…During the strike, I was like, I better go get a job, and I started working at a restaurant again.”

Her hope is that anyone in a creative field—actors, writers, directors, producers, crew members—has a viable and sustainable chance to enrich our culture. “After all, if we want great stories, we need the people who tell them to be able to afford to keep telling them,” she says.

And we definitely want Sarayu to keep being an intriguing storyteller. The way she seamlessly pairs honesty with humor is a combination worth listening to—and wearing on a T-shirt.