00:00Welcome to Real Talk, where it gets hot, spicy, and to the drama.
00:04I'm Caledonia. You may know me as Becky from Never Underestimate Girl Math.
00:09Today I am so excited to welcome a guest I had so much fun working on the show with.
00:13She played math genius Zosia. Let's give it up for Kai Kahnik.
00:30Hey, Kai. How are you?
00:36Oh my god, I'm so good. It's been a minute.
00:38I know, it's been a while.
00:39Yeah, yeah.
00:40I'm so excited to see that the show has started to come out and see people reacting to it online.
00:44Yeah, it's been really refreshing.
00:46All of our hard work and it's there and having amazing feedback.
00:53It's like, okay, it's been accepted well. Thank goodness.
00:57I'm like, you work on something and then it takes a minute to actually have it come into the world.
01:02I feel like it's like, how's it going to turn out? And it's so fun to see it.
01:07Yeah, I feel like as an actor, you have to forget about the project.
01:10And once you forget, that's when it comes to fruition.
01:14For sure.
01:14That's the trick.
01:17I want to know more about Zosia.
01:20Zosia!
01:21Yeah, how did you feel about playing Zosia?
01:22Well, it was nice to play smart, clearly.
01:24Nice.
01:24No, seriously, it was a beautiful experience to be able to step in the shoes of a multidimensional character because so often women can be written as one note.
01:37I also think that when characters, both genders, all genders, when they're typically really smart, they can lack human emotions.
01:48Yeah.
01:48And also be one note.
01:49So I was really excited that the script itself and the breakdown that I received had this beautiful backstory because I really took it as this was also a story about loving and the connection with her mother.
02:04Yeah.
02:05That was really her through line.
02:07True.
02:07And so it was nice to play a young woman who had a lot of self-worth, even though she had a lot of tribulations.
02:17True.
02:17And got to tap into different facets of standing up for yourself, being bullied, proving your worth, but knowing your worth.
02:25And of course, the fun stuff that I would never touch outside of vaccine, which is math and being like, OK.
02:33So, yeah, that was nice.
02:34That's awesome.
02:35That's awesome.
02:36Yeah.
02:36What about you?
02:38Yeah.
02:38I mean, playing Becky, she's like ridiculously evil.
02:41Right.
02:42So that's always fun to be to be super evil.
02:44But she is a mathematician, even though she's also kind of an imposter.
02:49She's stealing other people's work.
02:51But I had so much fun like being back in the world of math.
02:55I majored in college and I did a Fulbright to study math in Budapest after college.
03:01And so the craziest thing to me was that my character in this was she was the youngest professor at Princeton and she was a Nobel Prize in math.
03:10And the Nobel Prize equivalent is a Fields Medal for math.
03:12And I've met the youngest professor in Princeton history that has a Fields Medal in math.
03:18I saw that on your show.
03:19Yeah.
03:19I did.
03:20Yeah, you did.
03:20Yeah.
03:21He's the sweetest guy.
03:22His name is Mandel Bargova.
03:23And he told me I was talking about wanting to go into acting.
03:27I was met him at a math conference.
03:28And he was like, you should just try it.
03:29Move to L.A.
03:30Give it a shot.
03:30And it meant a lot to me to hear that from someone who was like well established within math.
03:35And so it felt very full circle to like, even though she's like a villain, to play someone like that was really fun and exciting.
03:44I think that's a beautiful thing as an actor.
03:45Some people believe or some people do go into acting to put on a mask or play different characters.
03:52I personally think that's more so a trope.
03:54I know a lot of actors who really just are able to show different facets of themselves in extension in different circumstance.
04:03Yeah.
04:03So it's like you've got to play in a more extreme sense.
04:08Sure.
04:09Who you could have been.
04:11True.
04:11With a little bit of evil flair.
04:14Right, right, right, right, right.
04:15And similar to my story, I felt like full circle.
04:19So I, uh, not necessarily full circle, but I didn't have a stable upbringing whatsoever.
04:26And finding people that took interest in me and cared for me and supported me meant the world to me.
04:34And through education is how I found stability.
04:38Yeah.
04:39So I really related to Zosia on that front.
04:42Yeah.
04:42Where she clung on to math because math was there.
04:47Yeah.
04:47And as a little kid, you need something stable.
04:49I think it's also kind of amazing to have a vertical, especially that the three main characters are female mathematicians.
04:56Like, that's wild.
04:57Like, you talked about the relationship between Zosia and her mom as being, that's like the love story.
05:02Yeah.
05:03In this vertical.
05:03And I think it was just, it was really fun.
05:05And I thought it was really exciting to do something so different from the roles that I usually see.
05:11Yeah, 100%.
05:12That was such a privilege.
05:14I'm quite new to the vertical world.
05:17I mean, this is my first time.
05:19I was a day player on one vertical about a year and a half ago.
05:22But this is really my first all in.
05:25And I had heard about how it was typically romance stories and to also have to be a person of color.
05:33And to be a lead and to not so much dive into the romance and to really have STEM-focused characters.
05:41I was very grateful and honored to be a part of that so that people can see themselves maybe in these characters.
05:48And that it highlights the flaws of human nature.
05:52Sometimes things can be too polished and no one can connect.
05:55But I think it's nice that we have, as the three women, they kind of show different points of being human.
06:02Yeah.
06:03Yeah.
06:03And different points in your career.
06:05And I think, I mean, Becky is evil, right?
06:08So I think like they each, you see how sexism impacts each of them.
06:12Yeah.
06:13Within math or also like kind of imposter syndrome.
06:16I mean, in my case, I was playing an imposter.
06:18So she didn't think that she belonged to be there because she really didn't belong to be there.
06:21But I think you see in Zosia, too, there are those moments where she's doubting herself.
06:25And it's really like her mom's faith in her that keeps her going to a certain degree.
06:30Every single woman had drive.
06:33And it was, what would they do to get to it?
06:36Yeah.
06:37Thank you so much for talking to me about this series that we did.
06:41We actually have one last game to play, which is called Girl Map or Delulu.
06:47I know a little bit about both.
06:50Same.
06:51Same.
06:52Same.
06:54All right.
06:54So our first question for Girl Map or Delulu.
06:57Okay.
06:57It's free shipping if you spend over $100.
07:01Okay.
07:01Okay.
07:02Three, two, one.
07:06Wait.
07:07How many dollars feels like a lot of money to me?
07:09If it was like $45 or something, then I might be on board.
07:13But what are we talking about?
07:14Because like, see, this is the details.
07:16Like, if we're talking about shoes and clothes, you buy two things and you're getting free shipping.
07:22Versus nowadays, shipping's like $10, $15.
07:24Paying in cash doesn't count.
07:29Three, two, one.
07:32Yeah.
07:32Woo!
07:34Woo!
07:35If it's already taken out of my account, the numbers in my account are X.
07:39They're not going to change.
07:40No.
07:40His birth chart says we're compatible, so we're soulmates.
07:44Girl Map or Delulu.
07:46Three, two, one.
07:50Yeah.
07:50Yeah.
07:51Soulmates with a guy is impossible.
07:53Oh, okay.
07:55I'm kidding.
07:56I'm just jaded and hurt.
07:58Right.
07:58Using rewards points to pay.
08:01Three, two, one.
08:03Yeah.
08:04Heck, yeah.
08:05They're your rewards.
08:06Talk about like, you earn that.
08:08Yeah.
08:09You deserve that sweet treat.
08:10Also, they're not going to do anything.
08:12They're just going to disappear if you don't use them.
08:14If he watches all my stories, he's basically obsessed.
08:17Girl Map or Delulu?
08:18Three, two, one.
08:21Oh.
08:22Okay.
08:23Watching.
08:23It is a distinction between watching versus liking.
08:26Okay.
08:26But I do ascribe too much meaning to Instagram stories.
08:32I hear you.
08:33It makes my life horrible, actually.
08:34That's what I'm saying.
08:36And I understand.
08:37I get it.
08:38I feel like I, with my friends, I'm constantly, like, social media means nothing.
08:44Okay?
08:45Doesn't mean anything.
08:46Because just think about it yourself.
08:47I'm like, you're scrolling through stories and you're not paying attention.
08:51Now, hack.
08:52Oh, my gosh.
08:52Hack that I just discovered.
08:54If you look at your views, okay?
08:56And you're like, oh, this person, this person saw it.
08:57Yeah.
08:58And then you look at your views an hour later and you see that person's at the top.
09:01They did rewatch your story.
09:03Really?
09:04Sorry to subscribe to your more delusion, but they did rewatch it.
09:08That might mean something.
09:09I'll have to fact check that.
09:10I'll go out tonight because I didn't go out last night.
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