There are sufficient outrageously absurd moments in Benito Skinner’s searing coming-of-age comedy Overcompensating to go away your jaw gaping in your chest—used condoms inspected like forensic proof, glass bottles smashed between barehanded palms, Charli XCX casually asking for cocaine at a university pageant, and beer-blasting frat bros going apeshit in a full-blown Freudian phallic showdown. However one of many extra pared-back moments in a present that’s so gleefully, unapologetically over-the-top comes when Benny—the primary character performed by Skinner, a closeted school freshman who remains to be grappling along with his homosexual id—first locks eyes with Miles, his will-they-won’t-they romantic curiosity.
In the course of a cringey freshman orientation routine, Benny spots the mysterious Miles sauntering throughout campus with a backpack slung over his shoulder and a touch of a smile flickering throughout his face. Regardless of the slow-motion pictures and angelic background music, it’s a type of moments that whooshes by quicker than you’ll be able to say “Tremendous Bass.” But, Miles walks throughout with such tender magnetism that, similar to Benny, you’ll be able to’t assist however cease and stare. He’s the last word Brown boy intercourse image, a heartthrob that doesn’t want a neon signal to cinch the title. Then once more, that’s most likely as a result of it’s a task Rish Shah, the British-Indian actor who performs Miles, has fairly comfortably grown into.
“I believe being a heartthrob, it’s one thing that requires intimacy,” Shah tells Rolling Stone India. “Attraction is one thing that’s valuable—It’s not that I’m not attempting to be assured in these characters, I believe it’s simply [about] bringing a facet of sensitivity and empathy that, yeah, I hope interprets.” Talking over a video name, Shah’s eyes mild up as he remembers the method of auditioning and capturing for Overcompensating. “I by accident began a hearth and shut down the set [for a day],” he remembers with a sheepish snicker (And no, he doesn’t imply that figuratively—a moist T-shirt and a plugged-in hairdryer really began a hearth). There’s a uncommon humility and wide-eyed surprise in his voice, as if he’s nonetheless wrapping his head round the truth that he’s made it this far.
It’s this grounded charisma that’s outlined lots of Shah’s roles, from the brooding blue-haired Russ in Netflix’s Do Revenge, the charming Kamran in Ms. Marvel, the earnest youthful brother Karim in Riz Ahmed’s Oscar-winning brief The Lengthy Goodbye, or the candy and sympathetic Ravi in To All of the Boys: At all times and Without end. It hasn’t stopped him from attempting out darker, extra complicated roles, just like the tormented Jay—who finds out his fiancée is having an affair along with his father within the erotic thriller Obsession—or the morally conflicted Mohammad, a radicalized youth navigating a publish 9/11 America within the politically charged indie movie The Candy East, through which he stars alongside Jacob Elordi and Ayo Edeberi.
However in Overcompensating, Shah performs Miles with an endearing awkwardness that’s directly honest and emotionally elusive. So when he (spoiler alert) suggests a pair’s costume and drops MDMA with Benny at a Halloween social gathering—solely to sneak off and hook up with a lady in Benny’s room as an alternative—or kisses Benny’s finest buddy Carmen (Wally Baram) in a cliffhanger second that pushes the closeted younger grownup to disclose his emotions unwittingly, you continue to end up rooting for Miles as an alternative of writing him off as simply one other fuckboy. [The show] has a really distinctive and calculated method to breaking down this world of poisonous masculinity,” he factors out. “So many individuals develop up in that surroundings, so I maintain lots of pleasure in the truth that I get to play a small position inside this path that Benny has created.”
It’s attention-grabbing that, regardless of Shah being an Indian-origin actor (his mother and father are from Mumbai and Gujarat, and his actual identify is Rishabh—although he admits that, rising up, he was all the time afraid the children at college wouldn’t be capable of pronounce it), his South Asian id by no means actually takes heart stage within the present. As a substitute, he’s merely Miles, an everyday British school scholar attempting to slot in at a college populated by dudes who talk in chook calls, “yees,” and “nahs.” That half, he explains, could be very a lot intentional.
“Though Miles’ id isn’t outwardly spoken about, I additionally assume that a part of the wonder is that we don’t need to deep dive into it for audiences. You understand, it’s as much as them in the event that they need to do the work themselves, however we don’t have to elucidate every part about the place individuals come from anymore.” Actually, Shah is a part of a rising vanguard of Brown characters on display screen who not need to explicitly spell out their id or conform to the drained tropes of medical doctors, taxi drivers, and comedic punchlines that after outlined South Asian representation in movies and TV. “I believe that’s an incredible step ahead, particularly in these kinds of tales. It’s about, I suppose, blurring these traces of what id ought to appear like, and that it doesn’t essentially need to be this Venn diagram.”
On the identical time, although, Shah has slowly learnt to share his tradition with these round him, whether or not he’s making his castmates jam to tunes by Sonu Nigam and Atif Aslam, or getting them to pattern Indian meals. One in all his favourite recollections from capturing Overcompensating in Toronto, he says, was taking the forged and crew to this hole-in-the-wall Indian road meals spot. “[Most of them] hadn’t [tried this kind of food] earlier than, however we ordered the entire menu. And even Benny, who has had lots of Indian meals earlier than, was like, ‘The place’s my mango lassi?’”
Shah additionally factors out that to embody the teenage heartthrob fantasy vitality Miles wanted to channel, he drew inspiration from Shah Rukh Khan and the Bollywood romances he grew up watching. Point out Indian artists, and he perks up like somebody simply hit the play button. All of the sudden, he’s animatedly riffing about his favourite indian artists—The Siege, Hanumankind, and Lifafa—like he’s queuing them up in his mind’s hype playlist. “Every of them brings a special type of vibe, and I’ve been in a position to lean into them for various roles as effectively,” he says. “One thing I usually do is create a playlist for a task and have enjoyable with that earlier than I am going onto set.”
Whereas he admits that, as a second-generation immigrant, he as soon as struggled to put on his tradition on his sleeve, engaged on initiatives like The Lengthy Goodbye with Riz Ahmed, Ms. Marvel with Iman Vellani, and Obsession with Indira Varma gave him the sense of group and camaraderie he wanted to really feel extra comfy in his pores and skin. “I used to be louder and prouder when Ms. Marvel occurred, after all, extra so as a result of I used to be surrounded by individuals who appear like me within the business, which, once more, is uncommon,” he factors out. “However then I used to be in a position to harness that empowerment and take it to different units.” Working with Varma, particularly, was a giant one for Shah: they each share a background in theatre, and her presence on set was a stabilizing power for him. After we discuss, he’s seated in his childhood bed room and shortly swivels the digicam to point out me a poster of Indira Varma in a stage manufacturing of Ionesco’s Exit the King, standing out in a sea of others on the wall. “I used to go and watch all these [theatre] exhibits once I was at uni at King’s School, and stick up all those that I assumed have been probably the most inspiring. And so for years, I’ve simply been watching her face, after which I started working with a hero of mine who’s paved the way in which.”
Whereas Shah by no means actually set out with the intention to subvert South Asian stereotypes, it’s a duty he hopes to honor with each position he chooses. He’s cautious to not be pigeonholed by his roots, however acknowledges the load of his tradition and the ability of representing it on his phrases. Actually, proper after filming Overcompensating, Shah made his first journey to India in seven years. “Going again to India afterwards, for me, was simply type of the proper method to decompress. The attractive factor about India, as you realize, is you’ll be able to sit nonetheless for one minute and likewise see 100 tales [unfolding] in entrance of you.” From watching road performers at Delhi’s Purple Fort and visiting his grandmother in Mumbai, to buying Indian garments in Vadodara and navigating palaces in Udaipur, the journey turned a grounding reminder of the place he comes from—and the way far he’s come. “For me, decompression is to take a seat again and soak up all of those stunning moments that [are] taking place to me.”