Sujata Day, Actor and Director

 
 
 

Simi catches up with Sujata Day, actress-model-screenwriter-director extraordinaire. She is best known for her starring role as CeCe in Issa Rae’s series, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl and her role on HBO’s Insecure. Over the course of her career, she’s appeared in an array of TV shows from Greek to The Secret Life of the American Teenager. In 2017, she produced and sold a short film titled Cowboy and Indian. More recently, she directed her first film, Definition Please, a South Asian dramedy about a former spelling bee champ.

In this episode, Sujata sheds light on how she first paved her path to Hollywood, from her early cameos on iconic shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer to her starring roles. She underscores the challenges she faced as a South Asian woman in the industry, and how those same experiences inspired her to tell her brown girl story. Listen in to hear hers -- it's powerful and telling of where South Asian representation is headed with women like Day at the helm. 

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Nandini Jammi, Founder of Sleeping Giants & Check My Ads

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Sarina Siddhanti & Arian Agrawal, Founders of Riya Collective