Out of the Blue: From Comedy Queen To Drama Juggernaut, Sarayu Blue Shows True Colors in ‘Expats’

SPOILER ALERT: This interview includes minor details about Expats. Please read at your discretion. 

It’s surprising that I have never sat down and had a chat with Sarayu Blue. Not only has she been a working actor for nearly two decades, but she is an Asian American actress who has been a working actor for nearly two decades — a South Asian American actress, specifically.

Blue is widely known for her stellar comedy chops. She can be spotted in Netflix’s popular film franchise adaptation of Jenny Han’s To All the Boys I Loved Before and starred alongside John Cena in the underrated raunch-com Blockers. She celebrated the holidays with Dan Levy and Kristen Stewart in the Hulu pic The Happiest Season.

She has appeared in numerous series including Veep, Never Have I Ever, The Unicorn, and most recently the dark comedy The Shrink Next Door which also starred Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd, and Kathryn Hahn. All of her work has spanned cable TV, streaming, and network but it is the Amy Poehler-produced series I Feel Bad, which debuted on NBC in 2018, during the Crazy Rich Asians moment in Hollywood where it seemed that the needle was moving when it came to South Asian representation.

After working in restaurants for years, doing jobs, and cutting her teeth in Hollywood, I Feel Bad was monumental for Blue. “That role was not written as Indian,” Blue admitted during our interview. “I tested against three white women for it… it was enormous for a South Asian woman to lead a network comedy. I felt like I pushed a boulder up a damn hill.”

She added, “It was only the second after Mindy Kaling and in all fairness, Mindy had to create her show for it to happen, you know.”

Blue admitted there were times when she couldn’t help but be resentful at the film and TV industry. I Feel Bad was canceled after one season, but it wasn’t alone. The post-Crazy Rich Asians hype was felt, particularly within Brown Asian American series. Quantico came to an end and the remake of Greatest American Hero starring Hannah Simone surprisingly didn’t get picked up to series. In 2019, the Kal Penn-led series Sunnyside premiered and then was pulled from NBC’s schedule with little to no explanation. The same year, Fresh off the Boat was laying the ground for a spin-off series called Magic Motor Inn starring Bollywood star Preity G Zinta and actor-comedian Vir Das but it never moved forward. Das also starred in Whiskey Cavalier which was axed after one season around the same time. Needless to say, it was rough to see these South Asian projects dwindle.

“There have been so many times when I have been like, ‘I’m done!'” she laughed and then said that there was this inexplicable feeling that kept her moving forward with her acting career. “It sounds so truly ridiculous, but I felt such something deep in me saying, ‘This is the thing. There’s nothing. This is what I have to do’.”

“You know, the industry isn’t going to just say, Oh, here’s this South Asian woman who carried a show, let’s go ahead and give her another show — that’s not how it works,” she pointed out. “I got to a point where I didn’t know if I could lift that boulder back up. If I don’t figure something out, I might have to figure something else out.”

She came to a point where she asked herself how she maintain a sustainable acting career — and if it was even possible. Then Lulu Wang came along with Expats and the character of Hilary Starr, a very posh career woman with a crumbling marriage and family woes living in Hong Kong. It was an opportunity that meant a lot to Blue.

“It’s hard not to get emotional,” Blue said to me as she tears up and as I try not to cry, which I am notorious for doing on Zoom interview calls. “It gave me an opportunity that a lot of people don’t get…particularly Asian or South Asian actors. There was no reason that this had to happen.” She said that because Wang, who wrote the limited series based on Janice Y. K. Lee novel The Expatriates, decided to make the character of Hilary Indian when she didn’t have to. The character is not written as South Asian in the book, but this helped add another layer to her already rich storyline.

“I loved the book and Lulu took the book and added her specific lens, which is what makes the show even more special. I think there’s this element that Lulu brings where she’s so intentional about actors of color and, you know, you don’t have to do that with a book like Expats. The truth is, you can and you don’t have to. It’s up to whoever is directing and that’s what’s cool about what Lulu did. We have this gorgeous book and this incredible story. She made it really intentional that actors of color were going to have really beautiful moments throughout the series.”

Blue stars alongside Nicole Kidman, Ji-young Yoo, Brian Tee (who was also interviewed by yours truly), and Jack Huston in the six-episode limited series on Prime Video. Set in 2014 Hong Kong, Expats hones in on the lives of Margaret (Kidman), Hilary (Blue), and Mercy (Yoo). When their lives intersect after a family tragedy, their relationships start to unravel in a way that interrogates privilege while also exploring themes of being an outsider as well as pain, struggle, and grief and how they live unapologetically in our lives. 

In this week’s episode, which drops on Prime Video on February 9, we have the opportunity to see the cultural and inclusive nuance as we are introduced to Hilary’s mother played by noted theater actor Sudha Bhuchar and we are later introduced to her father played by Kavi Raz, who appeared on formative TV series including The A-Team, M*A*S*H and Star Trek: The Next Generation. He also starred in St. Elsewhere, becoming the first ever South Asian actor to be signed on as a regular in a major TV series.

The episode finds Hilary anticipating and dreading the arrival of her mother, Brinder. As soon as she arrives at her posh high rise, the immigrant mother-daughter dynamic between the two is wildly rich and relatable to many. At one point in the episode, the two get trapped in an elevator with a neighbor who becomes a one-woman audience as Hilary and Brinder work out their familial issues — and there are a lot. It was a plot point that Blue loved and hit close to home for the actress.

“It was so it’s so funny… and triggering it’s because it’s so real,” she admitted, saying that acting opposite of razor-sharp Bhuchar was incredible. “You have this moment where you see Hillary at home and then all of a sudden, her mom is on her way. This 40-year-old turns directly into a 16-year-old almost immediately — just the way we interact.”

The tension is felt between the two as soon as her mom steps out of the car. Hilary reverts to her teenage self and her mom hovers with loving, yet pointed criticism. It was a moment that connected with something that Blue immensely. “It’s such a powerful episode that was so beautifully written by Gursimran Sandhu.”That relationship was so real and so powerful — that’s what’s compelling about Expats. It’s so real and at times hard to watch because of how real it is.” 

She explained, “What Lulu does so well is just when it gets hard to watch she pivots. She takes it somewhere where there’s humor or some slice-of-life moment that cuts it. And that’s just the brilliance of her rhythm. She never delves so deep that it puts you to bed. She keeps it moving.” 

In the elevator scene, Hilary and Brinder unpack a lot of issues that put enormous pressure on both of them including Hilary’s relationship with her very absent husband (Huston), not having kids, and her mother’s rocky relationship with their father. They are universal themes, but Wang and the writers’ room which includes Lee, the novel’s author, add cultural texture with Indian nuances. And to Blue’s point, the tense discourse in the elevator is cut with a smidge of humor by having Hilary’s neighbor (Jennifer Beveridge) there. She is trapped in the elevator with them and has no choice but to listen to this mother and daughter spill all their family secrets.

This all spills over into episode 5, which is titled “Central”. The feature-length penultimate episode made its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2023, months before it debuted on Prime Video. This was a bold move to drop audiences into this series without any of the four previous episodes to guide them. 

Like episode 4, Wang added cultural nuance to “Central” by exploring the lives of Filipino domestic workers — or “helpers” as they are called by their privileged and wealthy employers. As the core cast navigates the disappearance of Margaret’s son, we have the opportunity to see this world through the lens of Margaret’s helper, Essie (played gorgeously by Ruby Ruiz), and Hilary’s helper, Puri (a breakout performance for singer and first-time actor Amelyn Pardenilla).

Blue points out the importance of the episode. “When I got the scripts, and I started reading that one… I got goosebumps everywhere,” she said, adding how the episode is filled with other languages including Cantonese and Tagalog. When it came to acting opposite Pardenilla in their poignant scenes, the two characters start to emotionally connect as humans rather than employer and employee. Hilary is licking her wounds after going through mess with her husband while Puri modestly dreams of becoming a singer. The two have a sort of slumber party which at first is a dream for Puri but soon enters reality the following morning. Blue couldn’t help but be enamored by Pardenilla, calling her a “gift”. 

“[Pardenilla] is extraordinary and such a kind, kind person and so talented,” she recalled. “We had so much fun — well that’s the wrong word because they’re difficult scenes…” Blue takes a beat and then laughs, “Actually, some of the scenes are kind of fun!”

“What I love about the show is you think you’re rooting for someone and then you realize, ‘Oh, I don’t like them!'” Blue explained. “That’s an important part of it. In order for this show, and for this story to be told — guess what? Actual expats can be pretty damn unlikable… that’s any human being if you think about it. We all have moments when we’re likable and when we’re not. That dynamic between Hillary and Puri is so powerful because it brings the story full circle in terms of their relationship. It’s such an important part of the story to unpack that privilege and just let it hang there and be visible.”

This goes back to Wang’s dynamic storytelling abilities that help us lean into the real discomfort of a story and a character. Hillary is very cool and empathetic, but at the same time has her fair share of unsympathetic moments. Blue subscribes to Hilary’s emotional dynamics. “My job is to be of service to the story and if I start trying to make the character more likable the story is not being told,” she said. “My only job is to be telling this story. That’s it.”

Although Expats is a heavy drama, that doesn’t mean comedy is no longer in Blue’s repertoire. “I love comedy so there’s no time I’m ever going to not want to do comedy… that’s just where my heart lies. I think that what I want to do next, particularly in dramatic roles — it’s the same dream I’ve always had, which is to play a human being.”

Whether the actor is Black, Brown, LGBTQ, disabled, or any other underrepresented identity, Blue goes on to say that is what all actors in the margins want to play: human beings. “It’s something I’m pretty regularly and consistently vocal about because often we see so many underrepresented groups playing the straight role so that somebody else can have the jokes, storyline, emotions or nuance,” she said. 

With Expats, Wang adheres to Blue’s philosophy of marginalized folks playing human. Wang doesn’t like to put actors in a one-dimensional box which is why the core cast is populated with people of color playing complex characters alongside Kidman and Houston, two of the only white actors in the limited series. 

With a career that spans nearly 20 years, Blue has staked many flags in the ground to show her talent and what she has to offer to Hollywood. Like her co-star, Tee, she has been putting in the work and now, with the Expats flag flying high, she deserves all the flowers as she spreads her acting prowess across genres.

“You gotta keep working,” she said in terms of persevering through the rough landscape of Hollywood. “I’m so thankful for the opportunities I’ve been given… and I’m really thankful for Expats because it feels like it showcases something that so many actors of color can do but so rarely get an opportunity to do.”

Blue smiled, “This is an enormous, enormous gift, and I’m very aware of it.”