Geraldine Viswanathan's journey from a teenage acting hopeful in Australia to a successful Hollywood comedian is a testament to her talent and determination. She faced early challenges due to racial bias in the local industry, which led her to pursue opportunities in the United States. Now, she's a rising star, starring alongside big names like Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon.
Geraldine Viswanathan was 15 when she realized the local screen industry held no hope for her. She'd caught the acting bug during a family trip to Los Angeles, where her parents had agreed to let her do a teen acting workshop, and upon returning home hooked up a casting workshop with prominent casting director Thea McLeod, who flew her to Melbourne to audition for a role.
She got close, but didn't get the role – perhaps serendipitously, for the Indian family's stay in Erinsborough was short-lived, too. A news article from the time reported a “nasty race row” erupting among “fans angry a non-Anglo-Saxon family would become show regulars.” “I think they got death threats,” Viswanathan recalls. “The audiences were just not about it.” That near-miss seems emblematic of Viswanathan’s early experience with the local industry. In a story deplorably common for actors of colour or ethnic backgrounds in Australia, she found that onscreen opportunities here were severely limited.“I was told that I can’t play Australian,” Viswanathan recalls. “Like, in audition rooms, they’d tell me ‘well, you can’t play Australian.’ I’d be like, why not? I’m the f—ing most Newcastle bitch you’ll ever meet, I promise you! It was confusing. So I was just like, okay, I’ll go to LA then.”At the time, the local industry was still years away from recognizing its own white bias, and early attempts at increasing onscreen diversity, like the debacle, felt tokenistic. “Ethnicity, they always made a point of it here, whereas in America it felt like a non-issue,” says Viswanathan. “In America, I was able to just play American.” The frustration hastened her departure to the States for work. “It became apparent that America had open arms for me and that’s where I needed to be. From 15 on, I was sort of like ‘get me to LA’. So that’s where I went. Dressed in a throwaway rugby jumper and crocs (to be fair, she’d just been shot in Versace) and casually sipping on the same iced matcha for more than 45 minutes, Viswanathan is promoting the new Prime Video comedy, in which she stars opposite Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon. At 29, she’s become one of our top Hollywood exports, with a steadily growing profile following strong turns in films including These days, she splits her time between LA and Sydney in the summer, having recently bought a place for herself in Newtown, along with a storefront for her sister’s fashion line. If Los Angeles means work, Sydney’s the respite: she doesn’t get recognized here at home, she says, not by locals, anyway. “I was in Bondi and this American guy was like ‘oh my God, I love!‘” she says of the cult TV series she starred in for four seasons with Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe. “And then he was like ‘you’re just walking around?’ It’s nice – feels like a haven for me to retreat to if America ever gets too much.”Viswanathan grew up in the outside ’burbs of Newcastle, a “big old beach rat” with an Indian dad and a Swiss mum (her family’s still based up there). “It’s beautiful, and I feel so lucky to have grown up there … But it’s changed a lot. The ’90s and noughties in Newy hit different,” she deadpans. Looking Indian but speaking Swiss-German: in Newcastle back in the day, this could short-circuit people’s brains. “It was such a strange dichotomy. When people saw my mum and I together, they thought I was adopted,” Viswanathan says. “I felt like an outsider, always. But then comedy felt like a bit of a superpower, because funny is funny, you know? It doesn’t matter what you look like.”Comedy has always been a saviour for Viswanathan. (2019), in which she learned both Urdu and skateboarding to portray a Muslim teen’s coming-of-age, comedy has always been a saviour for Viswanathan.“When I was in primary school, I never got the lead in plays. But eventually I did get a comedic part in year 5 and I very much remember telling a joke and just crushing. I think I’ve been chasing that high ever since.” Viswanathan had moved to Sydney for uni, enrolling at UNSW to do international studies and journalism. By this point she’d already been taking regular trips to LA to pursue acting but, minus a working visa, she got intimidated when all her friends signed up for uni so followed suit. Between auditions and gigs in indie theatre, she missed a lot of classes. She dropped out and gave herself an ultimatum. “I said, okay, I’ll give myself the same amount of time as my uni course would have been – five years – to really go for it, to just see what I could do. And if it doesn’t work, I can always go back to uni later.” Were her parents supportive? “They were. My dad is such a rebel, worships Steve Jobs and, you know, the ‘mavericks’,” she laughs. “He was like, yeah, drop out of uni, go on your own path. He’s like that with my sister, too. We’re very lucky in that sense.”Viswanathan had been a comedy nerd growing up, worshipping the likes of Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Mindy Kaling, and after dropping out of uni took a proper shot at the Sydney standup circuit
Geraldine Viswanathan Hollywood Comedy Australia Acting Diversity Race Bias Standup Comedy
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