An audition over a video call and some fun banter with Maitreyi Ramakrishnan helped Ankur Rathee land the role of Ronak in Netflix’s coming-of-age drama Best of the Best. The actor sees the opportunity as a manifestation of his desire to explore Hollywood projects, one that came about organically. “I had five rounds of auditions for this role. The final audition round was the producer session with the investors, Lena [Khan, director], studio executives, and Hasan Minaj [actor and producer],” says Rathee, who was shooting for Four More Shots Please! in Bangkok when he received the call. He credits his chemistry read with Ramakrishnan for sealing the deal.

“Maitreyi and I ended up having a great banter and chemistry. We were really riffing off each other. At one point, we went off-book, improvised lines, and started playing the scene and improvising together. It was a great session,” he recalls.