XO, Kitty Season 2 Breakout Star Sasha Bhasin on Playing Praveena, Kitty’s Love Triangles, and Season 3 Hopes

Name: Sasha Bhasin
Hometown: Wellington, Florida
Current role: Praveena in XO, Kitty Season 2, now on Netflix

Teen Vogue: If you could be the main character in any TV show or movie that’s not your own, who would you be and why?

Sasha Bhasin: “Angelina Jolie in Girl, Interrupted. When I first became an actor, that was the first monologue I had ever done when I was 17. I did that whole thing where she’s talking to Daisy. That very intense monologue from them. I’m sure it’s on YouTube somewhere. [I was just] trying to perform to get an agent. I think there’s a lot of freedom in not caring what people think about you. I mean, the character was a psychopath, to be fair, but there’s freedom in doing as you please, and I think that’s really cool.”

Sasha Bhasin doesn’t know how to sit still. “I’m in L.A. right now but heading to New York tomorrow finally, and then it’s off to Mexico,” she says, trying to find the best angle to prop her phone up for the perfect Zoom framing. She settles on the kitchen table and sits comfortably, cross-legged, in a fluffy white chair. She keeps readjusting her position all throughout our hour-long chat, sometimes jumping up to show little details, like the Hollywood sign peeking through her window. It’s early December, and Bhasin is enjoying the calm before the storm. The storm in question is the release of XO, Kitty season 2, in which Bhasin plays Kitty’s (Anna Cathcart) new love interest, Praveena.

Much like Praveena on screen, Bhasin oozes confidence and charisma. Growing up in Florida by way of New York, Bhasin always felt an itch for acting. “I always liked being in a spotlight. I always liked performing for my family,” she says. She never really thought of it as a viable career — that is until Selena Gomez released “Who Says” with The Scene in 2011. “I’m going to be so real with you; that song changed my life,” Bhasin admits, humming the chorus. “I’m being so serious. After that, I spent hours Googling: ‘How did Selena Gomez do this?’, ‘How did Miley Cyrus do this?’”

Her sleuthing paid off, and she finally found a Disney Channel open call in Virginia. “I cried to my mom one day. We were in Florida at the time, and I was like, ‘We can drive. Please, please, please take me there. This is all I want to do.'” After days of wailing, her mom finally gave in, so they packed up the car and set off on their little road trip without telling Bhasin’s father, who was “really against the whole concept of acting” then.

When they arrived, Bhasin, who was around 11, recalls seeing thousands of kids with the same thespian dreams. She and her mom waited in line for hours on end until she was given a script from Good Luck Charlie to memorize. The unknown child to Disney star transition was all going according to Bhasin’s plan… until the actual audition started. “I got into that room, and I froze,” she says, trying to replicate her facial expression from the time. “I froze completely. I’d never taken an acting class. I was so nervous.”

Sasha Bhasin poses in allwhite clothes against a white background.

It took Bhasin a while to break that cycle and manifest her inner confidence outwardly. “It wasn’t until I moved to New York for college and I went to NYU that I really found my voice, and I [realized] that not only that I really want to do this, [but also that] I’m, actually, maybe good at it,” she says. “I started to get more empowered being in front of people and being seen. I think that is a big part, especially in the world we live in where everybody’s seen on social media, we’re so exposed, but at the same time, in person, nobody wants to say anything to each other.”