Fans have praised Chandran for her character in Bridgerton, Edwina Sharma, who is a kind-hearted debutante seeking love, and viewers have also been pleased to see South Asian representation in the media. 

 

However, the road to Hollywood success was rife with internal struggles, the 25-year-old actor said. 

“No one let me forget that I was dark-skinned growing up,” she said, Teen Vogue reports. “My grandma was very light-skinned. Whenever we’d go around in India, they’d always say, ‘Oh, you’d be pretty if you had your grandmother’s coloring.’ ‘Shame about the color of her skin.’ ‘She’s pretty for being dark-skinned.’ All of these comments, all the time.”

Chandran understands the weight she bears as a darker-skinned Tamil actor alongside Simone Ashley, who plays her older sister, Kate Sharma. According to a 2015 study, colorism is prevalent in Indian culture and is a byproduct of European colonial rule and the nation’s caste system.

“For me, colorism in some ways is more painful because it feels like a betrayal of your own,” Chandran said, Pop Culture reports. “If someone’s racist to you, you have your community to lean back on.”

“… If someone’s attacking you from inside your own family, or trying to oppress you, or create a hierarchy within your own family, that is in some ways, so much harder to deal with,” she added. 

Skin-lightening products are a multibillion-dollar industry in India. Many Bollywood actors are lighter skinned and also promote skin-lightening products. 

Chandran observed the products, saying they “always hide it under like, ‘it makes you glow,’ ‘brightens’ — it’s all synonyms for lighter. So I never ever was able to forget that I was darker-skinned.”

She admitted that when she was younger she tried to wash her skin color off her hands. 

She also said that her grandparents wouldn’t allow her to play outside in the sun, but she understood “they were trying to make my life easier.” 

The actor said she still has difficulty letting go of her former mindset but doesn’t want younger audiences to deal with that level of internal or external discrimination. 

“When the sun is shining, and I tan, my instinct is like, ‘Oh f**k, I tanned.’ I’m trying to unlearn it,” she said. “It’s going to be a lifelong struggle. Or like when I’m editing a photo for Instagram, of course the temptations are there, because for most of my life I’ve been taught that that’s what is beautiful. It’s really, really traumatizing. I just desperately don’t want that for my cousins. I just pray, pray, pray that it’s not like that for them.” 

But Chandran is savoring the reaction that her character is receiving from fans of the show, and she appreciates the opportunity to showcase the nuances of South Asians beyond Western media stereotypes. 

“In particular, what I love are how Desi people feel like we’re breaking stereotypes,” she explained, according to Teen Vogue. “The stereotype that Indians are nerdy and insecure, shy or whatever, is not at all what Kate and Edwina represent.”

“We’re expanding people’s knowledge of not only our culture but also of our people,” she added.