How ‘Never Have I Ever’ amped up Richa Moorjani ‘confidence’ on set

Los Angeles : Actress Richa Moorjani, who is popularly known by her character name Kamala from ‘Never Have I Ever’, has heaped praise on the show’s set for not only boosting her faith in herself, but also for always making her feel like she was truly welcome.

“First of all, I was not the only brown person, and I was playing an Indian character with an Indian name who was allowed to have a slight Indian accent, but the comedy’s not about her accent. It’s just part of who she is,” Moorjani told PEOPLE.

Moorjani wrapped up filming in August 2022, and she immediately travelled to Calgary in Alberta, Canada, to film the fifth season of ‘Fargo’ for six months, which she calls an “incredible experience.”

“There was nothing wrong with me being the only brown person. In fact, I think coming off of a set like Never Have I Ever just gave me more confidence walking onto another set where I didn’t have other brown people,” she shares.

“I just felt more comfortable than I might have felt in the past coming off of a set where I was a lead character and always made to feel like I belonged.”

Show creators Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher were conscious of giving their cast a voice on set, and Moorjani says the freedom of not having to check even a small part of her true self made the biggest difference.

“I didn’t feel like I had to, for lack of a better word, whitewash myself in any way. I felt like I got to just be my full authentic Indian self, and I was not the only one.”

“We just felt so comfortable being able to say, for example, little things – like I remember on the very first day of shooting for me, it was a family dinner scene with Poorna (Jagannathan) and Maitreyi (Ramakrishnan), and they had put out forks and knives and stuff for us to use, and we were like, ‘Oh, actually we would be eating with our hands if it’s Indian food,'” Moorjani reminisced.

The authenticity didn’t stop there.

“We don’t wear shoes in the house. So from that day onwards (after we mentioned it), no actors ever wore shoes in the set house, even if they were guest actors,” Moorjani said.

She added: “It became a thing written into the script.”

As for what the final season holds for Kamala, Moorjani said that she thinks audiences will be “happy” – something she and Kamala are always in pursuit of, reports People.