40 Time March 1/March 8, 2021
MAITREYI
RAMAKRISHNAN
19 • Breakout actor
BY MINDY KALING
S t e v eKornacki41 • Crunching the
numbersBY RACHEL MADDOWIt’s one of those screws with the
+ sign on the head, and you don’t
have one of those screwdrivers.
What do you do? Find a little
flathead straight screwdriver
and try to fit it into one of the
grooves? Maybe that will work?
Package needs opening. Hmm.
Butter knife? Bottle cap? Teeth!
We’ve all done it. The
makeshift, might-work approach.
But there comes a point in
life where you come to value
the safety and satisfaction of
applying the right tool to the job.
NBC and MSNBC national
political correspondent Steve
Kornacki was put on this earth to
process political data, synthesize
it in his head and explain it to
the rest of us—flawlessly, live,
for hours on end and with next to
no sleep—as we saw during the
2020 presidential election.
All of us in the news business
are capable of regurgitating
election results from this or that
precinct, and maybe even putting
those numbers in some context.
But Kornacki is better at it than
all of us combined.
To be in the studio with him
while he is running full tilt is an
awe-inspiring, humbling thing.
More than anyone else I’ve ever
seen work, he is the master of his
task.Maddow hosts The Rachel
Maddow Show on MSNBCWhen you’re a minority woman
with your own show, you gotta
represent. It’s a tough job to be
in that spotlight, where you are
scrutinized for your every action,
but it’s exhilarating too. People
come up to you at the airport or
online and say those three magic
words: “I feel seen.” It’s a huge
responsibility—and Maitreyi
Ramakrishnan is exactly the
kind of talented young woman
who is up to the task.
While she might come off asa carefree teen in her hilarious
TikToks and Instagram videos,
Maitreyi—who plays the lead
role in Never Have I Ever—is a
gifted comic actress. She studies
her craft and takes it seriously.
Moreover, she’s an artist who
cares deeply about the material
she’s performing, and what it’s
saying. She has an activist’s
heart and wants to use her
platform to help others.
What’s most extraordinaryabout Maitreyi is that when
you’re with her, you think
you’re simply talking to a cool,
smart teenager, but later, when
you see her work onscreen,
you realize you were actually
interacting with a great artist at
the beginning of her journey.
Kaling is an actor, writer and
producer and the co-creator of
Never Have I Ever
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PHOTOGRAPH BY JULIAN BUCHAN