Maitreyi Ramakrishnan says Twitch will give her chill ‘creative control’
Away from the buzz of Hollywood sets and the fervor that comes with being a breakout Netflix star, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan enjoys playing video games in her basement.
Best known for playing Devi Vishwakumar, the lead role in the Netflix sitcom Never Have I Ever, Ramakrishnan has shown off her own personality over the years through posts on TikTok and Instagram. And video games are part of it, whether she’s posting from Super Nintendo World or cosplaying as Lisa from Genshin Impact. On Friday evening, the actor will take that interest in a new direction by hosting her first-ever official livestream on Twitch. Polygon caught up with Ramakrishnan to talk about her decision to stream on Twitch, her content creation hopes for the platform, and most importantly, her favorite Mario Kart character.
“[Streaming] is one of those things that I never dreamed of doing when I was younger, before Never Have I Ever and everything,” Ramakrishnan tells Polygon. “But now it’s like, wait, I have friends who do this. And like, maybe I could do this too. And it’s truly just for my own enjoyment. It’s something that I have my creative control over. It’s a kind of your own little self-produced one-man show. But also it’s something that I love to do.”
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Ramakrishnan regularly posts on social media, but hopes that livestreaming on Twitch will give viewers a way to see a new side of her personality.
“I think that any social media platform, there’s that layer of, you don’t really know a person, like you can’t get their full personality, right? But I think with Twitch streaming and streaming video games that I like and enjoy, and even just chatting in the beginning of games and talking, I think it’s a nice way of putting myself out there in an authentic way that I have control over. It shows, OK, yeah, this is who Maitreyi is, who was literally just dwelling in her basement streaming from her PC.”
Ramakrishnan told Polygon she’s a “Nintendo girlie first and
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