**Spoilers Ahead!**
Amazon Prime’s newest series “Expats” stars Sarayu Blue, an iconic South Asian actress with over 20 years of experience and one of the first in the diaspora to lead her own show.
Blue has been in over 40 TV series from comedy to drama, her latest endeavor being a six-part limited series based on the author Janice Y. K. Lee’s 2016 novel “The Expatriates.”
The series can be put into one general theme: What is motherhood? In “Expats,” we follow the stories of three American women living in Hong Kong each grasping to understand what it means to be both a woman and a mother.
While the storyline focuses mainly on Margaret and her persistence to find her lost son, it also touches upon the lives of those around her including that of her Punjabi-American best friend, and neighbor, Hilary (played by Blue) — we see her grapple with the dilemma of whether or not she even wants to be a mother.
“Hillary is a 40-year-old woman who is at this real turning point in her life where she’s really, you know, having to reconcile a marriage that’s potentially falling apart and questioning whether she wants to be a mother and has gone through major issues with a close friend,” Blue told Brown Girl Magazine of her character Hillary, or as we later learn is named Harpreet.
Even though, in real life, Blue is vastly different from the character she is playing, she resonated with Hillary because she loved how the character went through the process of asking everyone close to her how they knew when they were ready and how it felt to have a child.
“Her questioning whether she wants to be a mom really resonated with me. I loved that storyline and I loved getting to see that depicted on screen because I don’t think we’ve seen that very often. I think as people who may or may not have kids, it’s so wonderful to get to ask the question and really answer it from a place of education.”
Hillary, she said, struggled with the idea of whether or not it was okay not to want a child and how that relationship would play into her life, which we later learn isn’t all that it seems.
“Hillary is this really pristine and put-together woman. She controls what she eats, controls how she works out and controls how she presents herself to the world,” Blue said.
“Elements of that are so different from me because I’m much more sort of all over the place,” Blue continued, “It was really fun to play a character that is so different from who I am, or that veers so differently from who I am.”
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Dressed in “very fitted” tailored suits and “super high heels,” Hilary is an assertive entrepreneur navigating her marriage to David (Jack Huston). Depicted as a wealthy woman, she is more than meets the eye with secrets that the series sheds light on as time passes, including the reality of her relationship with David, her familial past and her struggles with identity and culture.
Hillary’s struggle throughout seems to touch upon a common stigma in South Asian culture “What will people say?”
Speaking of how her relationship with her parents and the South Asian ideology of keeping up appearances influenced Hillary’s character, Blue said:
“A lot of times you see these very strong brown women…and what we see with Hillary is what happens when that armor gets removed.”
“I think the relationship she has with her mother, and to watch that relationship come to a crossroads, gives her the strength to move forward.”
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During our conversation, Blue said she, herself, was processing the character and the development Hillary had, including the moment she had the story to move forward.
Noting which moments are most important to pay attention to or for viewers to remember she said,
“There’s so much power for me in the episode where it’s really just her and her mom.”
Adding she is “obsessed” with Sudha Bhuchar, who played her mother, Blue said:
“There’s this moment where, you know, she realizes her mom’s coming and it’s like oh my god, ‘my mom’s gonna be here today.’”
In the scene, Blue is referring to, Hillary is notably seen transforming from a put-together adult to a child when her mother arrives.
“Immediately Hillary is 16 years old, just like that. It’s that thing that we have with our parents, it doesn’t matter how old we are. We see them and we revert to being kids again, right?”
“It is such a beautiful relationship and dynamic to watch and to see it portrayed in such a real way.”
The two are trapped in an elevator, during which audiences are introduced to Hillary’s backstory.
We see that makeup is an integral part of Hillary’s relationship with her mother and others.
In a memorable line, Hillary says: “Mix the shade to find where we belong” when speaking about how she learned to match shades for people like her.
When asked how Hillary uses makeup to bond with people, Blue said makeup is Hillary’s “armor.”
“The stuff she does with makeup, you know, it’s her armor. It’s how she controls how the world sees her. And that’s really what you see in that episode, both four and five, you start to see that. And it’s such a cool thing to watch how she builds her steel. And I’ll leave it at that.”
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In addition to seeing their relationship unfold, we also witness how it transforms Hillary when Bhuchar comes and refers to Hillary as Harpreet for the first time on screen.
The language switch from English to Punjabi is also notable and natural, speaking of that experience and bringing that to a mainstream audience, Blue said “it always makes me cry.”
“It just always brings tears to my eyes because you just feel immediate, like, Oh my god! Oh my god, you know, it’s happening.”
“I mean, the lipstick right under the dark circles. It’s an ‘OH MY GOD’ moment,” she said. “Think of you know, Deepica and Live Tinted, there’s something very real happening. When you see those specificities, you just feel so moved, because you’re like, ‘Oh, my God, this was never an option before.’”
She added: “It’s even what I love about episode five because we hear Tagalog, we hear Cantonese, we hear languages. It’s subtitled right for a good portion and it’s so thrilling because it’s the kind of representation we just have all been clamoring for.”
Touching on representation further, Blue noted that we are “seeing more and more” of these relationships on screen but she is always still “blown away.”
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Acknowledging that representation is increasing rapidly for AAPI communities, Blue said she feels “thrilled” and “elated” and “can’t get enough of it.”
“We need to have more and more and more,” she said. “I think any community who is not regularly being seen in a whole manner as whole humans, I want more of it, you know, and so I’m really excited that it’s happening and I just hope it continues to grow and grow and grow and become the new normal.”
When asked about the advice she would give to other brown women following in her footsteps, Blue said we need to remember not to give up and do what we can to feel supported so that we do not become cynical.
“Because cynicism is where we’re the ones who lose out. I want everyone’s hearts to remain passionate, excited, driven and willing to keep going, and we can’t do that alone.”
“We have to do that in community,” she said. “The number one piece of advice I would say is to find your community, find your people so that you can keep going because we need you.”
In tears, Blue emphasized the support she has gotten from the community and how the journey “has always been all about community.”
“I’m so thankful because I’m seeing it grow and grow and grow. And it means everything to me,” she said noting that conversations with brown creatives and representation on and off the carpet are “moving.”
“What I wish for all of us is continued community.”
Touching on narratives and stereotypes of how South Asians should be depicted and criticisms of how they look and act she said:
“We’re f**king perfect as we are. And we deserve space, and we deserve to shine.”
“That’s what I wish for every single human being, you know, particularly human beings who are not part of the main story more often than not.”
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Overall the key takeaway with Hillary, Blue said “is just how exciting it is to watch a dimensional nuanced, layered, complicated, flawed, delightful and heart-centered South Asian woman.”
The first two episodes of ‘Expats’ are currently available on Prime Video, with new episodes releasing through the finale on Feb. 23rd.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
