Amrit Kaur's Rebellion Didn't Look Like the Parties on "Sex Lives of College Girls"

Get the Full StoryAmrit Kaur had only just set up the internet in her brand new apartment when she signed onto our Zoom call from the dining room table. She'd spent the better part of this year renting Airbnbs in New York, dropping in for short spurts to help open a theater, salon, and gallery space called Gracemoon Arts Company, which has put on four productions since its July launch. But the more permanent move was inevitable, she says, and she's looking forward to a time when she feels more settled into her Bushwick duplex. For starters, more tables, a desk, and curtains are on their way.

Aside from moving, the Canadian-born actor has been busy this past year, winning her home country's most prestigious acting award for her role in Fawzia Mirza's "The Queen of My Dreams" and promoting this most recent season of Mindy Kaling's "The Sex Lives of College Girls." Adding to her busy schedule this week was the launch of Kaur's advertising campaign for a new chili-lime flavor of Captain Morgan rum, a sponsorship she's sharing with "Saturday Night Live" cast member Devon Walker.

It's easy to imagine Bela Malhotra, Kaur's character on "Sex Lives," chattering excitedly about a new chili-lime rum, telling everyone at the frat party that it's totally "mouth-blowing" the product's tagline . The wild-eyed undergraduate is a sucker for anything she deems a little freaky, a little spicy, and a little novel.

On the show, that often manifests in big parties and kooky nights out. But Kaur believes Bela's more interested in finally having the freedom to explore the world on her own terms than just simply getting wasted. "I think she just wants to do everything she wasn't allowed to do growing up. If that was bungee jumping, she would do bungee jumping," Kaur tells PS. "It just so happens to be every drug that she couldn't have, every guy she couldn't sleep with, anything that she wasn't supposed to do, she wants to do."

While "partying" means something different to everyone, Kaur says, it's ultimately about "living life, enjoying life, and experiencing life."

In that sense, she says partying is extremely important because it not only brings people together, it builds resilience. "I think thick skin is built from that, from the ups and downs and trepidations of life. And going out, putting yourself in uncomfortable situations, seeing the world, that's all very, very transformative."

And though Bela has an unmatched ability to sniff out the best college rager for miles, Kaur's ideal form of socializing is a little more low-key. "I'm not a huge social drinker," she says. "I'm not big on going out; I don't like too many people. If it's more than five people, it's too much."

Her favorite kind of gathering? Four or five close friends come over for a potluck, or a dinner that she cooks. Fifteen minutes before our chat, she'd just finished making her first meal in the new apartment: khichdi soup with rice and lentils, Tofurky with hot sauce, and a salad with a lime dressing. The rum campaign is a good match because she puts hot sauce and lime on almost everything she eats, she laughs. For Kaur, inviting beloveds to share her food and her space is the most rewarding kind of socializing. "I like intimacy," she says. "I like connecting with people."

Kaur may not share Bela's endless social battery, but she can definitely relate to her restlessness. "I also like trying new things," she says. "I'm sort of a delayed bloomer. I also, growing up, wasn't allowed to do a lot of traditional things, so I rebelled later in life."

That rebellion has taken many forms. Sure, she's flirted with the typical adolescent rebellions explored on "Sex Lives." But for Kaur, the choice to pursue acting, which her parents didn't allow her to study in high school, constitutes a rebellion of its own.

"Growing up I didn't see a lot of people on screen except a select few, and Mindy Kaling was one of them, who looked like me," she says. "So to go into a field where the worldview is saying I can't be an actor, it's an act of rebellion to say, 'I don't believe that.'"

Related:

Americans Forgot How to Party - Well, Except the Gays

Emma Glassman-Hughes she her is the associate editor at PS Balance. In her seven years as a reporter, her beats have spanned the lifestyle spectrum; she's covered arts and culture for The Boston Globe, sex and relationships for Cosmopolitan, and food, climate, and farming for Ambrook Research.

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