How “The Real Housewives of Orange County ”Inspired Poorna Jagannathan’s Take on “Deli Boys”’ Mob Queen (Exclusive)

Poorna Jagannathan “couldn’t find” inspiration for her caller mob leader character, Lucky from Deli Boys, successful immoderate of her normal prep work.

After watching The Sopranos and documentaries connected everyone from infamous female supplier dealers to erstwhile Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, nan Never Have I Ever prima yet recovered her muse from an improbable place: The Real Housewives of Orange County.

"I couldn't find her because beardown women for illustration that, they're not really portrayed," she tells PEOPLE successful this week's issue. "You know, physically beardown and a small disconnected and a small crazy and a small nurturing — it's a big, peculiarly caller character."

For nan 52-year-old actress, taking nan improbable domiciled has defined her career.

Jagannathan was first spot by nan acting bug erstwhile she happened to walk a fewer magical days pinch character Suhasini Hasan erstwhile she was astir 7 years old. Jagannathan says that if Hasan had not taken her to group and a movie premiere, she mightiness not person ever understood that acting was thing she could do.

"I sewage introduced to something. I had nary thought what it was," she says. "It was specified a profound infinitesimal to spot a unrecorded personification do this scene. I retrieve being truthful young and being truthful struck by her essence."

Jagannathan and Hasan person tally into each different aggregate times since and picked up correct wherever they near disconnected and nan younger character has ne'er forgotten nan indelible people that first brushwood pinch acting had connected her. Jagannathan is besides speedy to outcry retired different life-changing group from her career, including Avy Kaufman, nan casting head pinch whom she had her "first line, first segment and first bid regular" role.

One specified domiciled was her move arsenic Safar Khan successful nan award-winning HBO bid The Night Of, which followed a Pakistani American assemblage student astatine nan halfway of a execution case. Jagannathan says this miniseries marked a turning constituent successful her profession and signified a alteration successful what benignant of characters she was auditioning for.

"I retrieve getting nan sides of The Night Of, and they didn't consciousness for illustration immoderate of nan penning that I was being put up for. Everything 'till then, I would opportunity lacked a definite depth. They were looking for a South Asian woman. They weren't looking for a character," Jagannathan says. "They were looking for a mini small cog that fresh conscionable perfectly successful that small jigsaw puzzle. But this was nan first clip that I stopped acting and started conscionable being successful nan scene. And I understood that really bully penning allows you to extremity acting."

Many North Americans met Jagannathan successful her layered portrayal of Nalini, Devi’s tough-but-loving mom successful Mindy Kaling’s Never Have I Ever, which kicked disconnected a rich | relationship betwixt nan Tunisia-born character and nan prolific TV mastermind, whom Jagannathan says has a “brilliance” pinch “no bounds.”

“I spot what [Kaling's] accomplished, but I besides cognize what she's been up against which makes her accomplishments that overmuch much meaningful to me,” Jagannathan says, adding that she thinks Kaling’s occurrence comes from “bringing each portion of her to her penning and acting.”

Jagannathan says she still remembers a peculiar segment successful Never Have I Ever play 1 that Kaling took from her ain life experience. When Devi's family goes to dispersed her father's ashes astatine nan beach, nan unit utilized nan aforesaid location wherever Kaling had dispersed her ain mother's ashes.

"That segment is truthful poignant and it reverberates pinch a wave that is very difficult to picture because it's someone's communicative and you tin consciousness it successful nan writing," Jagannathan says. "I deliberation truthful galore of her [Kaling's] scenes are moments that she's knowledgeable aliases 1 nan writers person experienced, but besides nan moments that she has not been proud of. It is each of her each nan time."

The mom of 1 recovered nan aforesaid state successful honoring her full personification erstwhile she co-created nan award-winning play Nirbhaya (fearless successful Sanskrit), which highlighted women’s existent stories of intersexual violence, including her own.

"I look backmost and I'm like, 'Thank God I told my story.' I'm truthful grateful for that because you are only full erstwhile you tin judge each portion of your story, nan bully parts, nan shameful parts, nan bad parts, nan parts you are not proud about, nan parts you're joyous about," Jagannathan says. "And nan nationalist telling of what I would opportunity are nan astir shameful parts of our lives was truthful mind-boggling and difficult."

The bravery to level these testimonies is emblematic of Jagannathan’s full career, which has some seen and created waves of alteration for meaningful practice successful Hollywood. Next, she will return connected a superhero domiciled successful Lanterns, which is simply a benignant of characteristic she says she would person ne'er imagined for herself.

"There was a spot of, location is nary measurement I'm gonna get this. There's nary measurement that I beryllium successful this universe, and there's nary measurement that they want maine successful this universe," she says. "My preconceived conception of myself: that's what I'm up against a batch arsenic well. What I'm tin of, aliases what group spot maine as, aliases what I'll beryllium bully at. I'm besides navigating that."

From starting her profession astir 2005 and being up for nan aforesaid roles arsenic each different character of colour and now being approached for characters she could person ne'er imagined, Jagannathan sees it each arsenic a portion of thing bigger.

"I cognize we've really travel a agelong measurement because my profession virtually conscionable maps nan trajectory of us," she says. "The roles person gotten meatier. There are South Asians and Asians and group of colour penning for women for illustration maine and that's change."

Deli Boys is streaming now connected Hulu.