Photo: Astrid Stawiarz/Getty
Maitreyi Ramakrishnanisn’t letting her days spent on theNever Have I Everset just live on in her memories.
The series lead, 21, exclusively told PEOPLE that there were a few items from the Netflix hit’s set that have made it home with her. But one item, in particular, was quite massive.
“Well, I took the harp. I picked it up, put it in the plane, flew it back to Canada,” the Canadian actress half-jokingly shared at theAmerican Heart Association Red Dress Collection Concertat Jazz at Lincoln Center on Wednesday. “No, no, no. Thankfully, production was really helpful in helping me take the harp home.”
Ramakrishnan has been playing Devi Vishwakumar since the show’s April 2020 premiere. The honor student is a skilled harpist — and the actress, herself, actually learned how to play the instrument for the role.
Though the harp was the “biggest thing” she took, there were some other smaller, yet equally sentimental, items Ramakrishnan also left with.
“I also took one of her jackets just because it looked cute. Then I also took a pair of blue jeans because it was tailored perfectly to my butt,” she said. “As a Brown girl with a big ass, it’s important. Yeah, I’m going to take the tailored jeans. I’m going to.”
She continued, “It’s already tailored perfectly for me. So that was my most reasonable thing. Then the harp was definitely the epitome of Devi. In one object? I’d say the harp.”
Netflix
Ramakrishnan will appear in one last season ofNever Have I Ever. Teasing what’s to come, she confirmed she’s satisfied with how the series ends.
“Personally, I’m happy. I think it’s going to be great,” she said of the upcoming fourth season. “If they keep it the same, for all I know editing might make a difference. But no, I love it. I think it’s a really good ending. We really go out with the bang.”
Ramakrishnan is also “happy” will how Devi has progressed crossed the show’s four-season run.
“When we wrapped and we had a little mini-wrap party and the editor made a nice reel of season one, two, three, and four,” she shared. “At one part, we see all these clips from when I was like 17 portraying Devi in season one. It was emotional because you’re watching, truly, a hero’s journey.”
“A hero’s journey in the form of a once 15-year-old Brown girl from Sherman Oaks, California, dealing with the death of her dad,” she continued. “You see the journey that she goes on and you see that she’s grown up. Then I also was a little emotional, the fact that I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve grown up. Whoa.’ You can watch me grow up on that show and that’s crazy.”
VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty
Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Given that the illness is the number one killer of women, it’s “super important” for Ramakrishnan to help support the cause. But it’s even more imperative to her as a woman of color.
“I think women of color are faced with this normalization even more so of being told, ‘It’s probably nothing.’ ‘Just walk it off. You’re probably just stressed. Don’t worry,'” she said.
“I think women of color, especially Black women, have to do so much in their lives, they don’t have the time to sit down and do all this self-care all the time. And the weird part is, self-care is a privilege,” she added. “When you have to invest time, it is a privilege. So I think we should spend more time de-stigmatizing the whole period of it all and talking about these things and talk about women’s health and stop saying, ‘Just relax, it’s probably nothing.'”
source: people.com
