Having secured my Indian actors, I started for Baltimore, where I organized my combination, and which was the largest troupe I had yet had on the road.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I was heavily involved in musical theater.
I pretty much got into theatre to do community theatre and things, but then I went to Williamstown and found an agent. I then went to New York and did a lot of theatre there, so I started doing only theatre.
From the time I made my announcement that I was going to be an actor, I auditioned for community theater, did shows at Greenbrier, interned at the Cleveland Play House for a summer, took voice lessons, took ballet lessons. I did everything that Cleveland allowed me to do - everything that was available to me.
I started doing regional theater. My first job was 'The Importance of Being Earnest' at Dallas Theater Center.
I did some theatre. I had some smaller roles in a couple TV shows and films. I used to think I did a lot of acting, but my 'career' started when I started 'Homeland'.
The only thing I haven't done as an actor, other than Thai puppet theater somewhere, is act on a Broadway stage.
As Asian-Americans, we just don't often get the chance to tell the story from a leading person's perspective. And so I took jobs where they came, and they were always in the ensemble, and if it required me to play multiple instruments I did that, and if it was as a puppeteer, I did that. That's just how I was cast; that's how I was employed.
I trained in the theatre.
I have always let the lack of Indian actors in the industry drive me, not hold me back. I remember an agent in L.A. telling me a few years ago that an Indian actor wouldn't ever make it in Hollywood, but my ethnicity has helped me.
I started working in New York City as an actor and did many plays. I did regional theater, smaller theaters, children's theater.