Filmmaker discusses on-screen South Asian representation, urges community to be proud of own culture
Life And Style DeskSeptember 19, 20265 min readBehind-the-scenes from ‘Best of the Best’. PHOTO: Variety
Competitive Bollywood-fusion dance takes centre stage in Lena Khan’s latest Netflix film Best of the Best, a coming-of-age story that brings South Asian dance culture, friendship and fierce campus competition to the screen.
The film follows childhood best friends Maya and Anjali as they join a competitive dance team and set their sights on the US Championship. However, what initially appears to be an exciting college experience soon becomes an intense and sometimes cutthroat battle.
According to Variety, Lena was drawn to the project partly because of what she felt the story could represent for South Asian audiences. The director recalled telling a childhood friend about the film, only to be met with a dismissive response: “Bollywood competitions, really?”
For Lena, the reaction reflected a larger issue within the South Asian diaspora. “I think South Asians, especially in the diaspora, are so used to not even having our own self-respect,” she told Variety.
That idea ultimately influenced the film’s tone. Rather than treating South Asian culture as something that needed to be introduced or explained to audiences, Lena wanted the film to embrace it with confidence.
“We have so much respect for the skill sets of other cultures. We’re looking at kung fu, we’re looking at these different arts. But when we look at our own, we’re used to seeing ourselves as Apu or as the funny nerdy side characters,” she said. “We can be proud of things that we do as South Asians,” the filmmaker added.
The director’s previous work on Netflix’s Never Have I Ever also informed her approach to representation.
“When you have more than one of a minority character, then there’s suddenly become real characters,” she said, explaining that greater representation allowed stories to move beyond tokenism and focus on relationships and human experiences.
“You get to focus on the humanity between them, the things that become relatable to everybody else,” she stated.
The film’s writers, Hasan Minhaj and Prashanth Venkataramanujam, also brought personal experience to the screenplay. Both had connections to competitive performance circuits while growing up, giving the story a grounding in the intensity and commitment required by such teams.
Hasan Minhaj on set of Best of the Best. Photo: Variety
Variety reported that Minhaj’s wife also competed in dance, while Venkataramanujam performed with an a cappella group called Chai Town.
However, working with Minhaj and Venkataramanujam, who were both writing their first feature screenplay, was not always straightforward for Lena. The filmmaker shared that the trio frequently disagreed during the creative process, but those disagreements were rooted in meaningful discussions about the story.
“There would be such a thoughtful reason that we were always fighting over why we’re doing a certain thing, but it was never for a vapid reason,” she said, adding the two “are also just the most gracious people.”
Lena also immersed herself in the world she was preparing to portray, spending time with UCLA’s dance team and travelling to North Carolina to observe competitions.
For the cast, too, the film demanded more than acting ability. Several performers had little or no competitive dance experience before they joined the project, meaning extensive preparation was required.
Lena specifically pushed the Never Have I Ever star Maitreyi Ramakrishnan to undergo a major physical transformation for the role. “I need you to give me some Channing Tatum energy. And then I was like, no, actually, I need you to do a Christian Bale on me. I need a complete athletic transformation,” the filmmaker recalled telling Maitreyi. The actor subsequently underwent months of intensive dance training before filming began.
Discussing the dance numbers, Lena shared that rather than approaching the sequences simply as large-scale spectacles, each one began with a central creative question: “What is the essence we are trying to bring out in this particular moment?”
The production also faced a tight shooting schedule, with choreography styles that included Kuthu, Bharatanatyam and Pakistani-influenced dances, reflecting the varied cultural backgrounds represented within the fictional team.
“At some point this country and the world is just full of people in different cultures,” Lena said.
For the filmmaker, the goal was not simply to make films that featured South Asian characters, but to reach a point where those stories could exist without constantly being treated as cultural lessons.
She pointed to broader changes in the entertainment industry since her 2016 independent feature The Tiger Hunter, while noting that gaps remain. “We still don’t have that many romances or romantic comedies with South Asians,” Lena said, adding that South Asian men in particular were often not given opportunities to play romantic leads.
Best of the Best played with those conventions in its own way. Lena noted that the film’s “nerdy minority character” is instead a white character. “Like we have a token white guy,” she said.
The filmmaker also credited the growing visibility of South Asian performers and musicians with helping create space for projects such as Best of the Best. Among the artists she highlighted was British-Sri Lankan singer Joy Crookes, whose music she fought to include in the film’s soundtrack.
The director said the larger cultural shift had brought South Asian representation to a different point. “And now we’re like, well, we’ve really made it when we make a movie that’s just good,” she said.
Looking beyond Best of the Best, Lena said she remained interested in stories about overlooked people and subjects, particularly projects she wished already existed. “I’m always on the hunt for that,” she said, describing an ongoing search for stories that could introduce audiences to subjects that had not received enough attention.
Best of the Best,which premiered on Netflix on September 18, also stars Lilly Singh, Nihar Duvvuri, Nico Greetham, Amryn Khurana, Tanishq Joshi, Saara Chaudry and Sasha Bhasin, alongside Maitreyi.
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