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00:00The word changemaker is very akin to being an individual with unique superpowers.
00:05Don't change a world like other people change it. Change a world like you're supposed to change it.
00:10I am so excited to be here as one of your latest parade changemakers. What a huge honor for me.
00:16With all of our changemakers, we really just want to take things back to the beginning.
00:20I just want to talk a little bit about those things, like these moments in our childhood
00:23that do kind of impact maybe our worldview in the beginning.
00:26You definitely had some of your excited family that maybe wasn't the most excited that you were born as a girl rather than a boy.
00:31I grew up in a culture which is unfortunately common in a lot of cultures around the world
00:36where a son and a boy is considered a huge win and a daughter is considered a little bit of a burden.
00:41So I'm the second daughter in my family.
00:43From the day I was born until much into adulthood, it was very clear to me that I had a lot to prove as a girl.
00:50And I think that's where a lot of my resilience comes from, to constantly be striving.
00:55Now, do I think that's a fair and healthy circumstance?
00:57Not necessarily.
00:59Do I think that's maybe what the driving force behind my success is?
01:02Absolutely.
01:03So it's a little bittersweet.
01:04Looking back, do you feel like comedy was a way that you were able to cope or able to just use and like view your world in that way?
01:11Yeah, I feel like with every single traumatic thing in my life, comedy has been my crutch with everything.
01:17Comedy has a way of just like kind of holding you like a warm hug in very scary times.
01:21And I have used it throughout my life.
01:22It's definitely a huge, a huge connector.
01:25And I feel like, you know, growing up, when do you think you like always maybe like set out to become an entertainer?
01:31Was it always something you saw for yourself?
01:33From as young as I can remember, I loved the idea of entertainment.
01:37And I don't think I ever actually believed there was a way for me to be an entertainer.
01:42But then when I discovered YouTube in 2010, sup?
01:45And I was like, oh, this is like a platform where I could share my point of view.
01:49And like, there's not really that many gatekeepers.
01:51And I see a way to connect the dots to become an entertainer.
01:54So yeah, I've always loved entertainment.
01:56How I got into it was just a little bit of an unclear journey at the beginning.
02:00Your success wound up taking you all the way out to LA, which is just so exciting.
02:05Talk to me a little bit about when you then move to a place like LA, especially culturally, kind of dealing with that too.
02:10When you're then surrounded by other creators, but it may not necessarily look like or be like your home.
02:15I moved from Toronto to LA a decade ago, actually, in 2015.
02:18But before that, I had come to LA a few times.
02:20And I always felt super out of place because it seemed like everyone else knew each other.
02:24They all knew some recipe and culture that I was unaware of and I was not a part of.
02:28I was like, oh, like, no one I know speaks the language I grew up speaking.
02:33And no one here knows what a samosa is.
02:36And no one here knows soca music.
02:38So it was a steep learning curve for me.
02:40It's so interesting just hearing your story in that way too, that you have been an advocate for cultural representation.
02:44Yeah, there's a kind of a shallow reason and then there's like a deeper reason for that.
02:48The shallow reason is like, yeah, I think my culture is super cool.
02:52At a deeper level, though, why I'm such an advocate for representation is I know from an actual research perspective that when people don't see stories featuring people that look like them, it actually can hinder the evolution of certain communities.
03:05You know, so, so much of what we see on TV and on movies is how we understand ourselves.
03:09It's how we grow.
03:10It's how conversations happen.
03:11And when those people in those TV shows and movies always look one way, that means a conversation also always sounds one way.
03:20Absolutely.
03:20And then you get this opportunity, I mean, when you became the first bisexual woman of color to host a late night show.
03:25Welcome to the first episode of A Little Late with Lilly Singh.
03:28I think that sometimes maybe just because you're there doesn't necessarily mean that everything's all, you know, cheery and perfect.
03:37I think that there's always a lot of work to do.
03:38So just talk to me a little bit too about maybe how your perspective may be shifted or changed once you did get there, once you did get to probably one of the most coveted spaces in comedy, at least in this country.
03:49So what that looked like for you, I learned through that experience that getting a seat at the table doesn't matter if the table sucks, right?
03:57If the table is not going to serve you food, if the table is not going to let you be part of the conversation, if your chair is shorter at the table, if you're not getting the same meal as everyone else and the same service as everyone else, then that table actually isn't meant for you.
04:10And that's kind of what I felt like.
04:11So I think the greater goal should be to build our own tables and ones where we are actually invited into the conversation and treated like equals.
04:19With all that experience too, I know that you did wind up launching your own production company and foundation to focus on highlighting stories and voices that matter.
04:26So how my company's broken down is this unicorn island, but like you mentioned, there's a production side that is entertainment, TV, film, storytelling.
04:33The fun side is supporting girls and women around the world.
04:36Most of our grassroots efforts are in India.
04:38It's about changing the culture around how we treat girls and women.
04:41Now, the connecting thread between both of these things is my belief, my deep belief, that storytelling is the intervention.
04:48Like storytelling is how you change culture.
04:50It is how you change minds.
04:51And what we take in and what we watch, what we hear is really important in relation to how we treat people and how we value people.
04:58That's so beautiful.
04:59I know that your first feature doing it debuted at South by last year in 2024.
05:04That's such an incredible feat.
05:06That movie is a sex comedy.
05:08In the vein of like 40-year-old Virgin or any other movie like that.
05:12But I think because it has me as the lead and has a few other characters that are also BIPOC, I think this idea where it's considered niche because of that.
05:20But it's not because it's a universal theme.
05:23So even with things like that, it's like I feel like I'm constantly up against a lot of obstacles, but it's a worthwhile fight.
05:29I know that you do host a Diwali party every year in L.A. and that's so great.
05:32A to just give people a chance to connect, but also I think we talk a lot about community and communities that we want to build.
05:37I think my culture is very cool.
05:38And so I thought, wouldn't it be so great if I threw a Diwali party that was the party?
05:43Like it is the party to go to, whether you're South Asian or not.
05:47But it's my favorite thing ever because not only does the South Asian community come and be like, oh my God, this is so great.
05:51You feel so seen in the full community.
05:53But it's like you have Terry Crews, MJ Rodriguez, Paul Abdul coming through being like, this is the best party we've ever been to.
05:59And I feel pride in that, that it's a Diwali party that people think is so cool and fun because my culture is cool.
06:05And I will not be made to believe otherwise.
06:07I will not be made to believe otherwise.
06:09I feel like as we're driving towards this representation in numerous areas,
06:13there can be certain things that can maybe knock us back a bit when we get to these places.
06:17How do you maybe just like kind of keep yourself going in moments like that?
06:21It can feel super discouraging, I think, especially as a BIPOC person when you're in entertainment in that way.
06:26It is super hard to keep going, but what keeps me going is this idea that it doesn't matter if you're impacting 10 people, 100 people, 1,000 people, or a million people.
06:35Those people still matter.
06:36Impact can happen with one person too.
06:37What are some things that you think that we can all do just to promote better representation as best that we can?
06:43I think by nature, humans are so good at being really loud about the things they don't like.
06:48I think we need to be equally as loud about the things we love.
06:56What else do you think that we think that we want to take from the first ways ofeur remembering please?
07:03If it doesn't matter, it has really stood up close to the end.
07:18It won't be patient, but I'm afraid of the winds of mercy.
07:19Chapter two will align the appearance of the importance of pavement in the very early ways of looking at the scales.