Sasha Bhasin on Being Indian (and Passionate), Burning her Ships, and Saving the World

Words: Tanya Fevzi | Styling: Tabitha Sanchez | Hair: Ashanta Morris | Makeup: Manuel Espinoza | Photography: Jonny Marlow

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“I'm an Aquarius. I don't know if that informs anything, but I want to save the world.” 

Sasha Bhasin tells me this over Zoom, where she joins me from her downtown New York apartment. The city is her muse, even though she spent most of her adolescence in South Florida. She moved to NYC to study politics at NYU - where, she admits, “I never went to class, girl” or felt she fit in. Nevertheless, she has stayed put. Nowadays, the city is the source of the actress’ inspiration; she is certain that every character she will ever play already exists there. It’s why she spends so much time rehearsing scripts in the park as the world spins around her. 

She tells me her star sign as we are wrapping up the call, after I’ve done the amateur journalist thing of saving the final question to ask about her wishes for the future. I wait for her to tell me her dream role or director to work with, but instead, she paints a picture of everything wrong with the world, and then of her plans to tackle them - first, by opening schools for girls in India, because education, she believes, is where change starts.

“Acting is what I love to do and that will always be my job, but in my heart of hearts, the platform that acting can provide to help bring about change in the world, that's my goal, like saving the soil. There's soil degradation right now. The farming practices are all fucked up. There's going to be a famine in a lot of different areas because the soil can no longer support food growth.” She enthuses. “I think senior citizens are not treated correctly. I think the unhoused community, there are things that can be done about this. I just think if we can get people to care about the soil and the earth and the ground that we walk on, then all of a sudden people will begin to care about each other and the animals and the sea, and like, ugh, bring back empathy. Please, literally bring back empathy, what's going on?”

I feel grounded. The words spill out of her, unpolished. It’s a lot to take on for a 24-year-old, even if she’s an Aquarius. 

Her response, nor the fact that she didn’t go to acting school, does not undermine her ambitions to succeed as an actress; she wants a big series regular and to lead in a film. I mean, she didn’t beg her mum to take her to Disney Channel Channel open calls where they’d queue for hours for nothing. Her drive has always been strong and she refuses to believe she isn’t good enough. 

“Being loved and loving is so important to me. I was raised on Bollywood movies where every movie is a love story. In my family, specifically, we're not passive people. Everyone is passionate and I always say that our family drama is because everyone loves each other too much.”

When she booked her role as queer South Asian cool girl Praveena in Netflix’s To All The Boys spin-off, XO Kitty, she made the decision to fully commit to acting and burn her ships -  a.k.a pushing forward with no option of turning back. She tells me about Napoleon Hill’s Think Big Grow Rich, where she read the historical anecdote of an army general who ordered his men to burn their ships, for the first time. Even though she wasn’t financially stable after XO Kitty, it was what she told herself she must do: “You're here now. There's no quitting. There's no going back. There's no retreating. The only option is through.”

Playing Praveena meant a lot to her, and does to many others too - it’s why she got an ‘xo’ tattoo on her arm. One TikTok user commented under a video edit: “Praveena is such a baddie.” It was a character she had never seen when she was growing up; South Asians, she tells me, were always the dorky, goofy ones with “weird” accents. So, to bring to life a character who is depicted in a way that is entirely different to this made it all the more meaningful.

It makes sense that Sasha cares so much about the impact of her work. Being the person that can move people was something that she always wanted. It's why she became an actor - because of the actors on screen that had touched her so much as a child. She mentions Selena Gomez in Wizards of Waverly Place, but also watching her mum and aunt laughing at rom-coms at the theatre. 

“I love the reactions. I love acting as an art, I think playing characters is really fun. I think reading scripts and getting to be on set and travelling is all so much fun. But what really keeps me there is when I'm walking down the street and someone's like, wait, wait, wait, aren't you?” She laughs. “They don't know my name yet. It's like the wiggle finger. That, to me, is everything.”

It took some time for her family to get on board with her career choice - her father hesitant because of the industry’s reputation. “Me Too was very real, and there were a lot of people who were taken advantage of in this industry, and my parents are so protective over me.” Sasha notes. “Their lack of support came from that fear. And that's super valid. But now, I think my family trusts my ability to stand up for myself.”

Their undying support is clear, though. When her Nani (‘grandmother’ in Hindi) was passing, it was Sasha’s mum who encouraged her to go ahead with her audition for The Pitt. 

“Things happen in really mysterious ways and timing is so unsure. I didn't even want to do the audition at that time, but my mom was like, no, she'd want you to do this, and I booked the role.”

The next character you’ll see Sasha playing is in Netflix’s upcoming “camp” and “hilarious” Bollywood show, Best Of The Best, about dance teams in college. She smiles when asked about it, “I think Bollywood is so beautiful and so much fun and the culture is so colourful. In the same way that K-pop is ‘in’ right now, I'd love for Bollywood to be up next.”

She tells me that if I’ve seen any Indian shows, which I haven’t (yet), I’ll understand that they are driven by passion because Indian people are, after all, dramatic people. 

“I think that’s why I'm so passionate and being loved and loving is so important to me. I was raised on Bollywood movies where every movie is a love story. In my family, specifically, we're not passive people. Everyone is passionate and I always say that our family drama is because everyone loves each other too much so everyone's in each other's business just a little too much.” She adds. “Nobody pushes me harder than my family and I really appreciate that because, without that, I wouldn't be insane enough to be able to pursue this career.”

The first question I had asked Sasha when we started the interview, was how she would describe herself to people who don’t know her. She said she is a kind, fun, and open-minded person. At the end of our interview, I followed up with her on why she said ‘open-minded’. 

“I feel like right now, socially, there's so much judgement and so much backlash. There's a lot of hate and a lot of people placing their opinions on things that don't have anything to do with them.” She urges. “For me, I just truly believe in accepting people as they are and being open-minded and not judging people for the things that they do, for the most part, within reason. You can tell me anything and I'll probably just listen and I'll give you my opinion, but I'm not the type of person to judge or place my own feelings on what you should be like. I just don't believe in that.”

After talking to her, this is exactly how I perceive Sasha. Kind, fun, and open-minded.