Everybody Has a Story with Mean Girls' Kevin G (Rajiv Surendra)

hi welcome to YTB and this week segment of everybody has a story Rajiv Surendra is an actor and model best known for his role in the 2004 movie Mean Girls and he joins us today receiving so much for being here thank you for having pony we were able to procure a Yale Letterman's jacket yes I love this jacket so let's I mean let's get into why that jacket is important this role that you had in 2004 did you ever imagine that it would become like this cult classic that it's become no not at all none of us did I don't think any of us did there was definitely never talked on set about the potential of this movie becoming a huge phenomenon and no one involved in the movie at that point was a huge star Tina Fey was known for SNL and Weekend Update Lindsay Lohan was mostly known for The Parent Trap Freaky Friday had just come out so when we were shooting Mean Girls she'd be recognized here and there but no one was a big star and so shooting this movie was a wonderful first experience for me in terms of shooting a feature film there were no divas on set no one had a huge ego so we were just like a big gang of comedians trying to have fun and I really feel like that contributed to creating this wonderful movie we shot it all in Toronto and I'm a Canadian our high school experience is somewhat different from the American experience we don't have jackets like this at high schools in in Toronto so there were a lot of elements of the film that were fictional to me but I think that the girl world side of things was perhaps you know relevant to anybody going eyes now I know you weren't originally the one cast in that role what exactly happened in getting old I wasn't originally supposed to be trying out for that part they were looking for someone Chinese for the role of Kevin Jie his name originally was Kevin Noir and I went in and I actually tried out for Damien so I tried out for it my agent was like you want to fire out for this part he's this big flaming gay character I was like yeah sure absolutely I was trying out for anything and I went in and I left another thought well you know I did my best and then they call me back and they're like can you come in for this other part so I went in for that part for Kevin G and I could not for the life of me remember the rap for my audition I think we tried it like three times and then I basically said to the casting director like that's my best shot so and how similar do you think you are to the character that he played in that movie not not at all that's why it was so much fun to play I went to school with a lot of guys like that so in Toronto there are a lot of East Indian immigrants and their children whether they were born in India or Sri Lanka or were born in Toronto I saw firsthand a lot of these guys doing very well at school but being very conscious of trying to be cool and it was very funny it's something that they got made fun of a lot without even knowing that they were kind of ridiculous so I modeled this character on that and it was it was a lot of fun I actually was taking calculus in high school and I got I was getting 13% that was my great when I decided to drop out the math was not for me so it was really nice to play someone who looked at was good at math well that was my next question is were you any good at math no horrible math horrible at like physics I really wasn't good at math so you wouldn't have gotten a limit problem no not at all what happened after Mean Girls and in terms of film did you stay in acting after that I actually went right after Mean Girls to India to do research for a part that was supposed to start shooting that summer and it was the Life of Pi on the set of Mean Girls I was given the book after being told that I was exactly exactly like the character and when I found out it was going to be made into a film I really threw all my bags eggs into one basket and thought I'm going to do a bunch of research for this part and be ready for when it comes up for grabs it ended up taking seven years to make the movie and I stuck with the project through those seven years turning down all the parts so that's why I kind of disappeared well and you're I understand trying to write a screenplay about that experience now yes I'm actually here at Yale tonight giving a motivational talk about all of my efforts to try to land this part it was originally just supposed to be a few months of doing research and every year the movie kept being put on hold and I was already invested so much in it that I kept going going and going so it was a seven-year long journey and it ended with me not getting the part at the end of that journey I was really faced with an internal conflict of whether I looked back on that experience with a positive view or whether I just pushed it aside and tried to forget about it and it really was life-changing in a good way so that's what I'm here to talk about tonight I think that it is a wonderful story especially for kids in college who in a couple of years will be facing this open door with the question now what and I also feel that a film version of this journey would be very beneficial to North American audiences but now I understand you're involved in calligraphy and in chalk art New York how did that come about I've always been interested in lots of different artistic ventures so since I was a little kid you know I sculpted things and I painted and I drew calligraphy was something that I just started teaching myself when I was like 10 years old someone had given me these old letters from the 1800s and they were just handwritten letters but the writing was so beautiful that I was kind of inspired to take these letters to elementary school and copy the letter forms when we had writing exercises that grew into being very proficient with writing beautifully and somehow it turned into a little side business well we always end these interviews with a speed round of kind of a quick fun question okay first one what would the burn book say about receive surrender oh I don't know he'd like you to get out there and shake that thing Sarah one who what co-star from the movie or you go existed Daniel Franz AZ who played Damien she asked me how to spell orange lives he used to live in New York and he comes back and forth regularly I live in New York now so we hang a lot next one does my hair look sexy push back yes I would say definitely push back right not for totally book you're currently reading I'm reading actually Amy Poehler's book yes please someone do that to me and said it was a good read so I assume you read bossy pants I did yeah and I loved it what is your business card say let me give you my card my business card says letters in ink Rajeev Surendra New York actually could you hold on for one sec have in my bag I can show it to you I think you'd be really impressed okay okay you might not even can really thought that's okay we'll zoom in on it okay are you ready sure be sure I'm ready wow you're right I'm having a little trouble reading it it's more of an hour piece than a business card and you have to show them the edges are gilded in 22 karat gold or the edge of the card yeah that it's right there so those are engraved by smites in' there engravers to the Queen of England that's a badass MC exactly alright this is probably coolest business card I've ever seen so fat well thank you I'm onna no James Bond the third augur though yeah and the last one do you remember the ref oh um see they got nothing on me from a great time I like it dr. Kevin gee I do bits and pieces of it I don't perform it so well I was going to ask I know that you don't perform it but what your favorite line from my favorite line was actually cut really yeah it was Mean Girls was written and it was the script was very very crude there were a lot of dirty jokes and there was a lot of cursing it was actually going to be rated R and then as we were filming the studio decided that the target audience was much younger than you know rated our audience so they started having us cut out lines and jokes were changed so made out with a hot dog was originally not made out with a hot dog it was doing something else with a hot dog and we'll leave that to the event exactly oh my god that was one time and in the rap there was a part that when it ain't no trick I am this lake all the ninth grade ladies want to suck mop what and that was cuff why would they cut that well wouldn't have made pg-13 oh that's very so and one more do you ever wear pink on Wednesdays no receive surrenderer keep doing your Fang thanks for being Thank You Cody thanks for having me nice to meet you you too now as always thank you so much for joining us I'm Cody Pomerance for YTV and this has been everybody has a story see you next time happy holidays everybody

Channel: ydnmultimedia

Views: 37,926

Keywords: yale, daily, news, student, newspaper, broadcasting, Rajiv Surendra, Mean Girls (Film), Life Of Pi (Book)

Id: Cu3EVqypjtw

Length: 11min 20sec (680 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 10 2015