9-1-1 's Ravi returns! Actor Anirudh Pisharody explains where he's been and how his character has changed
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The 118 is a tight-knit group, but sometimes a new recruit is able to make their way into the inner circle.
"Anirudh Pisharody has become the little brother of the group," Kenneth Choi, who stars as Chimney/Howie on 9-1-1, tells EW of the guest actor who joined as rookie firefighter Ravi on season 4 of the Fox drama. "He entered the fray last year and he's become our little sibling, where we mess with him all the time on set. We joke with him, we play pranks on him, and he takes it all so graciously. He's found such a wonderful place in all of our hearts."
Fans apparently agree, with many wondering where Ravi has been the first 13 episodes of season 6.
Jack Zeman/FOX Anirudh Pisharody as Ravi on '9-1-1'
In a preview clip EW debuted exclusively last week, viewers learned that the former "proby" has been working at the LAFD training facility, helping raise the next generation of firefighters. In real life, Pisharody was busy wooing Maitreyi Ramakrishnan's Devi as Des on Never Have I Ever and (spoiler alert) dying as Paige's ex-boyfriend, Luke, on Big Sky.
"Listen, it's champagne problems to have a plethora of opportunities," Pisharody says of balancing the shoot schedule of three shows. "But I'm so grateful all the productions have been willing to work around my schedule. I'm sure there are many shows out there that it would've been much more of a hassle than it was. 9-1-1, Big Sky, and Never Have I Ever made it all go swimmingly, and I really appreciate that."
Not bad for a guy who got a degree in public health and only started acting professionally on a whim.
"I grew up doing a lot of theater in middle school and high school and then my immigrant parents were like, 'Maybe you should do something a bit more stable,'" says the Indian American actor. "I had never thought I'd continue acting, so I decided to do pre-med in college and kicked around for four years doing that. I got a degree in public health, took my MCATs and everything."
During a gap year before medical school, Pisharody was working at a consulting firm in Washington, D.C., and says he quickly realized "this 9 to 5 that I was experiencing was not what I wanted to do." So he packed up and moved to Los Angeles, where his girlfriend was living.
"I was like, 'Okay, you know what? Screw it. I'm just going to go over there, kick around for a little bit, and then I'll try and reapply to medical school,'" he says. 'So while I'm doing that, after I've landed in L.A., my girlfriend was like, 'Hey, why don't you just get an agent? It doesn't cost anything, you can just send out a couple of your headshots.'"
Pisharody was quickly signed and soon acting wasn't just something to keep busy. "At that point, I had a lot of friends who were already in medical school, and I realized they were way more passionate about it than I was," he says. "So I decided to pull the trigger at that point."
Though they'd discouraged him from acting after high school, Pisharody says his parents took the news of his pivot quite well. "They were like, 'Okay, we expected this going in because you really didn't seem to be that into medicine.' They basically said, 'Don't half-ass it,' which I think is really, really important. It's really good advice no matter what you're pursuing. Fast forward some six years later, I've been living the actor's life."
Jack Zeman/Fox Kenneth Choi and Anirudh Pisharody on '9-1-1'
And that life has led him back to 9-1-1 now that his Big Sky and Never Have I Ever commitments are done.
"When I got the script, it was better than anything I could have thought of," Pisharody says of his return in season 6, episode 14, "Performance Anxiety". "He's definitely a changed man," he teases of his character. "The time that he's been away, he's gone through some stuff — some big life changes and big life events. This is a much more mature, more emboldened, wiser, stronger Ravi."
But while Ravi has changed, Pisharody knows he's still the "proby" to the 9-1-1 cast.
"Every time I get on set, it's just like being a part of a big family," he says when asked about the pranking Choi mentioned. "I'm the youngest [of the 118 actors], so I get treated that way — and it's very endearing, it's very loving. It's like having a bunch of older brothers and a big sister. And it's a lot of fun."
Jack Zeman/Fox Anirudh Pisharody with guest star Mark Bramhall and Aisha Hinds on '9-1-1'
9-1-1 airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Fox.
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