How One Reality Show Inspired Poorna Jagannathan’s ‘Deli Boys’ Role (Exclusive)

Poorna Jagannathan “couldn’t find” inspiration for her recent mob boss character, Lucky from Deli Boys, in any of her normal prep work.

After watching The Sopranos and documentaries on everyone from infamous female drug dealers to former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the Never Have I Ever star finally found her muse from an unlikely place: The Real Housewives of Orange County.

“I couldn’t find her because strong women like that, they’re not really portrayed,” she tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “You know, physically strong and a little off and a little crazy and a little nurturing — it’s a big, particularly novel character.”

For the 52-year-old actress, taking the unlikely role has defined her career.

Jagannathan was first bit by the acting bug when she happened to spend a few magical days with actress Suhasini Hasan when she was around 7 years old. Jagannathan says that if Hasan had not taken her to set and a movie premiere, she might not have ever understood that acting was something she could do.

“I got introduced to something. I had no idea what it was,” she says. “It was such a profound moment to see a live person do this scene. I remember being so young and being so struck by her essence.”

Jagannathan and Hasan have run into each other multiple times since and picked up right where they left off and the younger actress has never forgotten the indelible mark that first brush with acting had on her. Jagannathan is also quick to shout out other life-changing people from her career, including Avy Kaufman, the casting director with whom she had her “first line, first scene and first series regular” role.

One such role was her turn as Safar Khan in the award-winning HBO series The Night Of, which followed a Pakistani American college student at the center of a murder case. Jagannathan says this miniseries marked a turning point in her career and signified a change in what kind of characters she was auditioning for.

“I remember getting the sides of The Night Of, and they didn’t feel like any of the writing that I was being put up for. Everything ’till then, I would say lacked a certain depth. They were looking for a South Asian woman. They weren’t looking for a character,” Jagannathan says. “They were looking for a tiny little cog that fit just perfectly in that little jigsaw puzzle. But this was the first time that I stopped acting and started just being in the scene. And I understood that really good writing allows you to stop acting.”

Many North Americans met Jagannathan in her layered portrayal of Nalini, Devi’s tough-but-loving mom in Mindy Kaling’s Never Have I Ever, which kicked off a rich connection between the Tunisia-born actress and the prolific TV mastermind, whom Jagannathan says has a “brilliance” with “no bounds.”

“I see what [Kaling’s] accomplished, but I also know what she’s been up against which makes her accomplishments that much more meaningful to me,” Jagannathan says, adding that she thinks Kaling’s success comes from “bringing every part of her to her writing and acting.”

Jagannathan says she still remembers a particular scene in Never Have I Ever season 1 that Kaling took from her own life experience. When Devi’s family goes to spread her father’s ashes at the beach, the crew used the same location where Kaling had spread her own mother’s ashes.

“That scene is so poignant and it reverberates with a frequency that is very hard to describe because it’s someone’s story and you can feel it in the writing,” Jagannathan says. “I think so many of her [Kaling’s] scenes are moments that she’s experienced or one the writers have experienced, but also the moments that she has not been proud of. It is all of her all the time.”

The mom of one found the same freedom in honoring her whole person when she co-created the award-winning play Nirbhaya (fearless in Sanskrit), which highlighted women’s real stories of sexual violence, including her own.

“I look back and I’m like, ‘Thank God I told my story.’ I’m so grateful for that because you are only whole when you can accept every part of your story, the good parts, the shameful parts, the bad parts, the parts you are not proud about, the parts you’re joyous about,” Jagannathan says. “And the public telling of what I would say are the most shameful parts of our lives was so mind-boggling and difficult.”

The bravery to platform these testimonies is emblematic of Jagannathan’s entire career, which has both seen and created waves of change for meaningful representation in Hollywood. Next, she will take on a superhero role in Lanterns, which is a kind of character she says she would have never imagined for herself.

“There was a bit of, there is no way I’m gonna get this. There’s no way that I belong in this universe, and there’s no way that they want me in this universe,” she says. “My preconceived notion of myself: that’s what I’m up against a lot as well. What I’m capable of, or what people see me as, or what I’ll be good at. I’m also navigating that.”

From starting her career around 2005 and being up for the same roles as every other actress of color and now being approached for characters she could have never imagined, Jagannathan sees it all as a part of something bigger.

“I know we’ve really come a long way because my career literally just maps the trajectory of us,” she says. “The roles have gotten meatier. There are South Asians and Asians and people of color writing for women like me and that’s change.”

Deli Boys is streaming now on Hulu.