Acting exacerbated Amrit Kaur's insecurities, until one day a teacher set her straight
The Canadian star of The Sex Lives of College Girls explains how she got into acting
Amrit Kaur says she got into acting for all the wrong reasons.
"I love acting, but I didn't really discover I loved acting until much later," she tells Q's Tom Power in an interview. "I got into acting because I wanted to be famous. I wanted to have money. I wanted to be the prettiest girl in school. I wanted it to fill a hole, to fill the pain. And then once I got those things, the pain was still there."
The Canadian actor is one of the breakout stars of Mindy Kaling's hit HBO Max series The Sex Lives of College Girls, which just wrapped up its third season. Kaur says she began acting as an extracurricular activity in high school, at a time in her life when she was experiencing a lot of self-loathing, particularly about her race and appearance. That self-loathing was exacerbated when she decided to go professional.
Kaur recalls "a very well-known Canadian agent" taking one look at her headshot and telling her she'd never be a lead on a TV show because her nose was too big. The agent added that her best bet was to get a nose job.
It wasn't until later that Kaur realized that the problem wasn't the way she looked. She credits one of her acting teachers for steering her in the right direction.
"I met a teacher who was phenomenal who said, 'I'm going to stop working with you if you ever change your nose,'" Kaur tells Power. "'Your face is the one of everyone, and we need to see everyone on TV. How many billions of brown girls are there that look like you?' And then that that resonated with my purpose."
The full interview with Amrit Kaur is available on our YouTube channel and on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Interview with Amrit Kaur produced by Glory Omotayo.