The Story Behind Netflix's Rousing Bollywood Dance Comedy Best of the Best

Maitreyi Ramakrishnan and Priyanka Kedia in Best of the Best —Courtesy of Netflix Maitreyi Ramakrishnan wants to make this clear: She had to audition for Best of the Best , the coming-of-age comedy playing out against the world of collegiate Bollywood dance competitions.

“Please include that Maitreyi Ramakrishan was not just offered this role,” she says, her almighty finger pointing hard at my notebook.

“Maitreyi Ramakrishnan worked!” She’s responding, in her beguilingly animated way, to my suggestion that her character, Maya, feels as though she were written for Ramakrishnan, the Never Have I Ever star who was introduced to us in 2020 as the fabulously temperamental teen Devi in Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher’s Netflix dramedy.

Maya was actually conceived around the same time, when Patriot Act host Hasan Minhaj and his writing and producing partner Prashanth Venkataramanujam spent their time in lockdown cooking up Best of the Best , their answer to the Step Up franchise, which is finally hitting Netflix on Sept.

18.

For some fans, who were eager to see Devi go to college, Best of the Best might serve as a suitable replacement for a continuation of the show, which ended in 2023 after four seasons.

The movie reunites Ramakrishnan with one of her Never Have I Ever directors, Lena Khan, and co-choreographer Joya Kazi, who appeared in its first season, performing a Bollywood-style routine to the song “Nagada Sang Dhol.” In that scene, Kazi fluidly blended India's traditional Kathak dance with the swirling and romantic poses choreographed specifically for the big screen in Mumbai.

That fusion, in a nutshell, is what Bollywood dance is all about.

Devi, who harbored complicated insecurities about her cultural identity, scoffed at the performance.

Ramakrishnan’s Maya, on the other hand, would scoff at anyone challenging her Bollywood-style supremacy.

“Maya is that bitch,” says Ramakrishnan.

A clear casting choice Ramakrishnan and Minjah behind the scenes of the film —Courtesy of Netflix We’re at dinner, discussing Ramakrishnan’s leap from leading a TV show to carrying a movie, a conversation we will pick up again a week later on a Zoom call with Minhaj.

I meet up with Ramakrishnan at East Tea Can, a restaurant in her Mississauga neighbourhood, west of Toronto.

She orders the cardamom black tea for us to share but insists she could finish off the entire pot by herself, and introduces me to mana’eesh, a stone-baked Middle Eastern pizza served with minced beef and lamb.