Going Out with a Bang

Going Out with a

‘Bang’

Actress Rati Gupta

Photo: Benjo Arwas

Rati Gupta’s New Role Creates Bigger Breaks

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BY ANNETTE JOHNSON

Playing Raj's (Kunal Nayyar) new fiancé, Anu, in the 12th and final season of the award-winning CBS TV series “The Big Bang Theory,” actress Rati Gupta describes the experience as a “dream” on the “wild ride” of an actor’s life.

In Gupta’s first role on a network TV show, she plays an ambitious, successful hotel concierge who desires to own her own hotel one day. Anu's dominant personality complements Raj's more passive manner, so their impending arranged marriage by Raj’s father could actually work.

Landing this role on the final season of a hit TV show that averages nearly 20 million weekly viewers and is the most watched show currently on the air was not as intimidating as some may think. The castings directors were familiar with her because they had auditioned her for another role on the show about five years previously. When they called her to read for this new role, she read for the show’s executive producers, Steve Holland and Steve Molero.

“I just kinda did my thing, and they were both smiling and nodding, like as if to say, ‘Yeah, this was it. We have nothing more to say,'” she said. “I got the call later that day.”

The 35-year-old actress described getting the role as a “crazy whirlwind” because she, at the time, was working on another series. She was shooting the final scene of the last episode on “Future Man” for Hulu, starring Seth Rogen and Josh Hutcherson. Gupta stars as Rake, a carefree, fun-loving member of the future humans who is married to Wolf (Derek Wilson), the lead character who has recruited Josh. “It was kinda this poetic, perfect actor moment where I finished one job and immediately had another. And that

Photo by Benjo Arwas

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Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar)

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doesn’t happen often.”

Jokingly calling herself the final “wifey” on the long-running hit series “The Big Bang Theory,” she added, “It definitely felt like 10 years in the making for me to be ready for this role at the right time in my career.”

After spending an entire summer working on “Future Man,” she explained, “I felt like it was kinda training me, getting me ready, and then I get this other job, this dream job. I felt ready. It was time.” Given the timing and opportunity itself, Gupta teasingly remarked that perhaps landing the role was a bit of divine intervention. “I felt like the universe was saying, ‘I saw you, girl. We got you. We saw you. We’ll give you this thing that you want now. You’re good.’”

Her confidence during the audition was “extremely high,” adding, “The second I read the character description, I was like, ‘This is mine.’ I knew this girl was me. I had it.”

Explaining that she is not arrogant and rarely goes into an audition with so much confidence, but this role was different. It felt as if it was designed for her. “So the fact that I read for this character and thought, “This is me. I can do this. I can get this,” that doesn’t happen often for me. So [that confidence] just played into how easy it was for me to get the job because I felt like the producers just sensed that from me.”

There were other actresses at the audition who Gupta says “worked a lot” and had more extensive resumes than hers. Feeling somewhat intimidated initially, she said to herself, “Well, this might not be mine yet.”

No matter who ultimately got the role, though, Gupta felt like the casting itself was a win for all women of color. “When it comes to these roles for women of color, especially Indian women, you have to put your ego aside, and say like, ‘Look, the fact that this role exists and the fact that this show is open to casting us, like our type of women, that’s a victory for all of us.’”’

In fact, she says she goes into all her auditions with a sense of appreciation and gratitude for those American productions that cast Indian women. “I put the competitiveness aside and just say that this

is a win.”

As an Indian American, she takes great pride in her heritage. Her parents were both born and raised in India but immigrated to the U.S. in the late ‘70s. They have, according to Gupta, lived in the states longer than they had lived in India at this point. They are U.S. citizens who gave birth to and raised their children in Michigan City, Indiana. “They are good Americans,” she remarked. “They are more American now than they are Indian.”

Fully aware of the limited roles for Indian actresses in Hollywood, she has remained optimistic and committed to honing her skills. “I knew that going into this industry that there were hurdles that I was going to face that a lot of other actresses were not going to. And I knew that I would have to be better and that I would have to work harder and I would have to do more to overcome all of those things and prove myself worthy than all the other white actresses out there. I think all the other actresses of color know that going in that like the battle is harder for us. Thankfully, when I actually started acting, and like really plunged into the act-

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Anu is Raj's fiancee in season 12

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Kunal Nayyar and Rati Gupta on the set of "The Big Bang Theory." Photo by Sonja Flemming/ CBS.

ing world, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ had just won the Oscar. Coincidentally, it was a great time to present myself to Hollywood and say, ‘Hey, I’m an actress’… It was the best time for me to walk in as an Indian woman.”

Even though she launched her acting career during a popular time for Indian films and actors, she said she was being typecast and getting “typical” roles. However, she believes that over the last decade Hollywood has become more inclusive of Indian women especially. “The culture has changed. I think a lot of people are more open-minded and looking at people of color differently and characters of color and our stories, treating them differently with more integrity and more respect. So I do think everything has just gotten better over the past 10 years that I’ve been at this.”

Without giving away specifics, Gupta says she is working on a script of her own that would be based on Indian culture and characters. “I don’t want to give away the details yet,” she said with a chuckle. “Everything that I write or every project that I would want to produce or help create moving

forward is either for women or for Indians or for immigrants. Those are the worlds that I want to help highlight more in our media.”

Although acting currently consumes much of her career aims, Gupta was formerly an aspiring hip-hop dancer. She actually began dancing at age 3, when her mother had her learn a traditional Indian style dance called Kathak. Then she took ballet, tap and jazz classes. “I’ve been dancing my whole life,” she said.

At some point during her youth, she admittedly become transfixed by Janet Jackson and her music videos. “I got to the point where I would just tape record MTV all day, and then I would just fast forward to any Janet Jackson video that I saw. I would just watch it on repeat, so I could learn all the choreography.”

She would stay in her bedroom for hours trying to emulate the singer’s every move, and this is how she learned nontraditional dancing, including hip-hop. She became captain on the dance team in high school, and she even competed and won awards. “[Dancing] just kinda became my thing. I just fell in love with it.”

While attending Northwestern University, she directed a dance company, Boomshaka, that was part stomp but involved more dancing. She also did more hip-hop style choreography. After graduating from college as a psychology and pre-med major, she moved to Los Angeles, where her goal was to dance with Janet Jackson. While she never got the opportunity to dance with her “hero,” she managed to eke out other opportunities, appearing in music videos for Lupe Fiasco and Flo Rida, before getting into acting. “That’s how life goes, and I don’t regret anything,” she reflected, adding a bit of optimism. “I do miss dancing. I don’t do it as often as I used it, but I can always go back.”

Although in some profound ways she is similar to her character Anu, namely in being unapologetically independent, Gupta is totally opposite in regard to her real-life love for music. “It would be fun for Anu to dance at some point on the show, but the writers gave her this personality trait of hating music. So I don’t know what the feasibility would be of her [ever dancing].”

Often with the resolute hope of realizing the American dream, immigrant families may pressure their children to opt for stable, high-paying careers in science, technology, engineering or math. Gupta admitted that her family was no different. “I have to thank

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my older brother, who did the good kid thing, and he became a doctor. So, in a way, he kind of took one for the team for the two of us. He went down the parentally acceptable future career route. It kind of paved the way for me to be the rebel child a little bit more. My brother is a saint for doing that for me.”

After lightheartedly discussing her parents’ career expectations, she said they still unconditionally supported her. “They didn’t love the decisions I was making,” she admitted, “but they always supported me. I think what was mostly hard for them was when I decided not to be a doctor and go down this whole other foreign entertainment pathway was that they knew nothing about this [field], and they didn’t know how to help me. Whereas my dad is a doctor and all my parents’ friends are doctors, and so if I went down the medical route, they would know how to help me. So that was the most painful part of this choice that I made.”

Being on her mother’s favorite TV show, “The Big Bang Theory,” has eliminated any fears or doubts in their daughter’s career decision they may have had. “Finally, they are like exhaling. They are like, ‘Okay, she’s fine. She’ll be okay. It’s been a journey for all of us, but we’re good,” she said with a lingering chuckle. “Everyone is happy.”

When the show airs, her family, in fact, shares their excitement via group text message. “The family group text on the night when the show airs, is just lit. Everyone is just freaking out. It’s a wild night on the group text – that’s for sure.” Fortified with quick wit and a knack for storytelling, Gupta also does one-woman stage shows. She enjoys sharing her personal stories because she feels they are a great way to connect with people. “Especially when you share very vulnerable or scary or unique things that have happened to you, experiences that you’ve had, it makes other people out there feel less alone or more understood.”

Wanting to connect with the audience is something she seeks to achieve as a performer, but making a personal romantic connection remains as a noncompulsory aspect of her life. About her relationship status, she says, “I am super single, like happily, shamelessly single. Marriage and children are things that I don’t necessarily feel like I need in my life.”

In focusing on her career, she hasn’t completely eliminated the prospects of having a family one day, so she froze her eggs about a year ago. She explained, “It was a choice I made because I go back and forth on whether or not I want to be a mother somewhere down the line.”

Obviously affected by the gravity and sensitivity of the topic, her words flowed somewhat more thoughtfully and steadily, punctuated with wistful pauses. “I’m open if down the line it becomes something that I want, so I don’t know…If I meet a guy that I’m into, then I would consider marriage, but generally…you know these are things that I’m not proactive about. I’m not hustling to make these things a part of my life, but I’m just kinda going with the flow and seeing where it leads me.”

Her career keeps her focus for now, as the show is shooting as it airs. “I write a lot and spend a lot of my time hustling [for jobs]. I’m still doing the actor hustle. This is the final season of the show, so I kinda need another job after this one.”

After all the questions about her career prospects and personal life, one main question loomed, the one all “The Big Bang Theory” fans want to know: Is she (Anu) going to marry Raj? “I don’t know,” she replied. “I truly do not know how this is gonna play out.”

While the show’s many fans may be waiting on that possibility, they can catch Gupta on as Sally Green in Netflix's upcoming limited drama series "Unbelievable." It follows the story of Marie (Kaitlyn Dever), a teenager who is charged with lying about being raped, and the two female detectives (Toni Collette & Merritt Wever) who followed a twisting path to arrive at the truth.

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“I am super single, like happily, shamelessly single..."

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