Expats' Sarayu Blue Admits 'It Does Get to Me' When People Butcher Her Name: 'I Am a Sensitive Soul' (Exclusive)

“There’s also a part of me that I want to be bothered with because I want to know that I care and I want to know that I’m still human,” Blue tells PEOPLE

Mispronouncing Sarayu Blue’s name is something he’s dealt with for years, but that doesn’t mean he can shake the pain away.

“Of course, it affects me. I’m very human, we all are,” the 48-year-old actress tells PEOPLE exclusively. “I think I’d like to pretend it’s not, but I’m a sensitive soul.”

This iteration allowed Blue, whose name is pronounced Sar-rye, to better connect with her character Hillary Starr in the new Prime Video limited series, Expatsbecause of the similar feeling they both experienced.

Sarayu Blue reveals how her character in ‘I Feel Bad’ makes everyone feel seen

“I think the thing that hits me the most, and that’s one of the things I love about Hilary, is that we have that authenticity. We actually have a story about that particular kind of situation because it’s so specific and because of that it’s so universal,” she explains. “I had a few people who were really, really cruel to my nose for a long time, and it really hurt. I had friends who were like, ‘Don’t let it bother you. Don’t let it bother you’.”

“I get it. In theory, that’s true. But there’s also an element of me that wants it to bother me because I want to know that I care and I want to know that I’m still human,” she continues. “And then, I want to let it go. I want to let it go. And then, I want to come back and be ready to fight more. And what I love about being at the point in my career and living the wonderful, incredibly happy life that I get to live is that to feel good enough about myself that it doesn’t really matter what other people think of me.”

Overall, Blue’s “hope” is that “we see more and more representation helping to change that perspective.”

Sarayu Blue is pictured at the South Asian Excellence Awards held at the Paramount Studio Lot on March 9, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.

Brian Feinzimer/Variety via Getty

Blue’s new series Expatsbased on the 2016 novel by Janice YK Lee Expatsfollows the complicated personal and professional lives of a close-knit group of expats living in Hong Kong.

“I think what’s so exciting about getting a role like Hilary is that it’s an opportunity to really just sink my teeth into something,” she says of the project. “So it feels really amazing.”

But before she landed her exciting new role opposite Nicole Kidman amid a “really interesting” time in her life, Blue felt like her career was at a standstill following the cancellation of her short-lived NBC sitcom, I feel bad.

Sarayu Blue as Hilary Starr in ‘Expats’.

Courtesy of Prime Video

“I feel bad he didn’t go anywhere and i think my heart is really broken. I think I felt like I went through a real grieving process that felt so grand, so huge to me to become this dimensional, flawed, tiny, funny woman as a South Asian woman,” she explains. “I think when it was over, and really it took me a long time to get over it.”

The I never did alum continues, “I’ve always said, ‘Acting is my first love.’ It’s almost like that first boyfriend or whatever. So it has a place in my heart. And so when something like that doesn’t work out that I love so much, it really hurts. I go through heartbreak. And I’m telling you that because what I realized was was after I was done grieving, I didn’t really know if I had the ability to really fight again, to believe that it was possible again.”

Expats‘ Sarayu Blue recalls ‘fun’ experience working with ‘gorgeous’ Nicole Kidman: She’s ‘silly’

When the opportunity came up to star in the Prime Video drama, Blue recalls telling series creator Lulu Wang that she “didn’t think this was possible for me to be in this world, to be able to play at this level” and it was “bigger than I could dream.”

“So, when I think about where I am in my career, I don’t even know. I’m at the peak, really, for me, for all my dreams, what’s to come,” he adds. “I dream of being able to go on, to have the ability to go on, to keep playing human beings, to have dimension, to have roles. I wish that for everyone. I really wish that for people who especially don’t get those opportunities regularly.”

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The first two episodes Expats are now streaming on Prime Video, with new episodes arriving every Friday until February 23rd.

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Source: HIS Education