Never Have I Ever star Maitreyi Ramakrishnan has fulfilled her late grandmother’s long-held wish by working with Oscar-winning composer AR Rahman on her newly released Netflix film, Best of the Best.
Directed by Lena Khan, the film premiered on September 18 and features an original Tamil song, Aamaasee, written and sung by Rahman. The track plays during the film’s climax.
In a recent interview, Ramakrishnan said her father’s mother had wanted her to work with Rahman. “Unfortunately, she obviously passed away before the movie came out. She was in the hospital [in the last month] so she couldn’t focus on the tablet to actually watch. But I’d like to think somehow cosmically she knows that I technically did work with ARR.”
Ramakrishnan expressed that she was left speechless when she was told that the film’s writer and producer Hasan Minhaj said that Rahman had created the song as an homage to her Tamil heritage.
She also said she planned to check with Minhaj to confirm whether Aamaasee was written specifically for her.
The film, whose music has been composed by Daniel Rojas, features several popular Bollywood songs, including Baazigar O Baazigar and Ghungroo. Aamaasee, however, is an original Tamil number by Rahman.
Best of the Best follows childhood best friends Maya and Anjali, played by Ramakrishnan and Priyanka Kedia, respectively, as they join UCLA’s competitive Bollywood-fusion dance team and face challenges both on and off the dance floor.
The film also stars Minhaj, Chaneil Kular, Ankur Rathee, Shreya Navile, Becky Alex, Nihar Duvvuri, Nico Greetham, Amryn Khurana, Tanishq Joshi, Lilly Singh, Sasha Bhasin, Janina Gavankar, Saara Chaudry and Kavi Ramachandran.
Minhaj, who plays Professor Hamza Latif, co-wrote the screenplay with his Patriot Act collaborator Prashanth Venkataramanujam.
Ramakrishnan rose to fame with Mindy Kaling’s Netflix teen comedy Never Have I Ever.
Source: The Telegraph
