The actress caught up with PEOPLE exclusively before the release of her Pokémon Super Bowl commercial

NEED TO KNOW

• Maitreyi Ramakrishnan revealed she uses an unusual fake name when ordering at coffee shops
• The actress, 24, said she does it because people often mispronounce her actual name
• Maitreyi also shared her personal goal for the coming year

Maitreyi Ramakrishnan revealed she that often gives an unexpected fake name to baristas when ordering at coffee shops.

The Never Have I Ever star caught up with PEOPLE exclusively before the release of her Pokémon Super Bowl commercial. During the conversation, she shared that almost no one pronounces her actual name correctly.

The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now!

“One hundred percent story of my life, especially with my first name,” Ramakrishnan, 24, said. “I had a couple of viral tweets when I like first got famous. Just spelling out my name as like, My-Tray-Yee as a pronunciation.”

She added, “But then, see my thing is with my last name — I didn't feel like I ever needed to do that. 'Cause my last name is just [said like it’s read]: Ramakrishnan. But then I get a lot of people saying Rama-Chrishtian, like Christianity. And I'm like, there's no ‘T.’ This is yet again, a reading comprehension issue.”

“This is why we need to invest in education,” she quipped.

Ramakrishnan then shared that she now often gives a different name altogether when she’s grabbing coffee to avoid the hassle.

“I usually just say my name is Blue at like a coffee shop. I'll just say Blue,” she revealed.

Later in the conversation, PEOPLE asked the Freakier Friday actress if she has any specific goals for the coming year, to which she said she hopes to feel more comfortable with the things in life that are outside her control.

She continued, “My brain doesn't like to know that it's not in control of everything, you know?” she explained. “Like, I understand that there's many things in my life that are out of my control completely, but my brain doesn't like to know that, and keeps fighting …  even though logically I understand that as a concept.”

“So, all of this to say, I think, at least in my near future …  I want to try and embrace the fact that, yeah, not everything is in my control. I have to really just narrow in and focus on what is, you know, tangible, and [what] I actually have influence over,” she added.

She said she does, however, know that there’s one thing in life very much in her control: the people with whom she surrounds herself.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

“I know that I have good people around me. That's like super, super important,” she said, adding, “I don't like to put myself in a social circle that makes me feel like I'm second-guessing myself. Not that I need a bunch of yes men … I need people that are real.” 

“I mean, life is short, it's a blip. Gotta make it count. Might as well have a good cast of people, you know?” she added.

Source link