IN FULL BLOOM

She may have had humble beginnings in the hallowed halls of YouTube over a decade ago, but today, Lilly Singh is an instantly recognisable face on the internet. Despite making record-breaking strides in her industry, the comedian, actor and former talk-show host tells Sadaf Shaikh that her only competition is the person in the mirror.

- Sadaf Shaikh

Bollywood was such a huge part of our household. As a teen, there may have been a gap in my knowledge of American culture—pop songs or iconic movies that I didn’t know about—but never with Hindi cinema. Bollywood is stitched into the fabric of my being,” Lilly Singh tells me over Zoom. I’m talking to the famous Indo-Canadian comedian from my bed as though we were old friends catching up after a brief gap. Singh, who has connected from her home studio in Los Angeles, also appears completely at ease. She is dressed in a simple T-shirt and blazer, her long hair tied in a loose half-bun, eyes uncharacteristically stripped of kohl. Even her trademark exuberance appears to have been dialled down—she solemnly considers each question I throw at her instead of lacing her responses with her usual blend of spontaneous quirkiness. “The first movie I ever watched was Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! (1994),” she says with a smile, when I ask her how she knows so much about the Hindi film industry despite being born miles away from Indian soil. “I saw Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) thrice on the big screen and growing up, my walls were plastered with posters of Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar and Madhuri Dixit. I also had a huge pile of Stardust magazines to keep abreast of Hindi cinema.”