Interview: Richa Moorjani on Her ‘Fargo’ Journey and Learning to Love Snow

An Oscar-winning film and five television seasons in, the stories of Fargo continue to captivate audiences. Although Noah Hawley’s anthology series – or the film that inspired it – rarely ever ventures to Fargo, North Dakota, each new tale explores a different era from the 1950s to the late 2010’s, as well as a different part of the vast Minnesota landscape.

While the first four seasons have loose ties to one another and/or to the 1996 film, the fifth stands completely on its own. It is the fall of 2019 when we meet Dorothy Lyon (Emmy Award nominee Juno Temple), a creepy and very old kidnapper (Ole Munch), a vengeful sheriff/ex-husband (Emmy Award winner Jon Hamm), a billionaire mother-in-law (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and a determined police deputy with trouble at home (Richa Moorjani).

As deputy Indira Olmstead, Moorjani brings some of the qualities that influenced her work as Kamala Nandiwadal in the series Never Have I Ever. In Fargo, Indira is a police officer who takes the charge seriously to protect and serve, though overwhelmed by mountains of debt and a husband who refuses to grow up. But because of her grit and determination, Indira’s life changes the day she meets Dorothy Lyon.

In my conversation with Richa Moorjani, we talk about her journey to Fargo, her newfound love for snow, developing the confidence to seek out new opportunities, and working with Juno Temple and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Karen Peterson: Prior to being cast in season five of Fargo, what was your experience with the show or with the film?

Richa Moorjani: My experience was that it was always on my “to watch” list. Never seen it, but everyone, when I would tell them that, they’d be like, “You’ve never seen Fargo?” I’m like, “Oh my God, I really need to watch the movie and the show.” And then finally when I got the audition, I was like, “Oh, now I really need to watch it.” So it was the perfect opportunity and I kind of love that, I love when that happens, whether or not I get a role, when I get something that reminds me I need to watch something because it’s like otherwise you just don’t get to it sometimes.

KP: So true. What was the process of being cast? Did you have to go through a bunch of auditions?

RM: So I first got the request to do a self-tape. And when I got it, I was actually hesitant about doing it because like I said, I had never seen [the show] and I didn’t know what a Minnesota accent was. I’d never heard it in my entire life, and it was due in a couple of days, and it was very long and very difficult, and I just didn’t think that I was going to get the role. I was like, “There’s no way they’re going to cast me to play a cop.” I was in the middle of shooting the last season of Never Have I Ever, playing this beautiful grad student with an Indian accent, and I’m like, “They’re not going to cast me, so what’s the point?” But after having a conversation with my manager and one of my best friends who was actually my co-star on Never Have I Ever, they were like, “There’s no way in hell you are passing up this audition. You have to audition for it.” So I did just so that they wouldn’t be mad at me.

Then I watched the movie and I watched a lot of the series and I became obsessed with it. I was like, “I can’t believe I haven’t seen this before. This is some of the best writing I’ve ever come across in my career. I have to get this role.” But then I still was like, “But they’re still not going to cast me.” And I think it was like three weeks later out of the blue, my manager was like, “Noah Hawley wants to meet you.” And that was after just the first tape. And I was like, “Why?” But also very excited. And so we had a Zoom meeting and it was lovely, and we just got along right away.

And I really felt after hearing his vision for the character and for the series, I was even more obsessed, I was like, “Oh my God, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, not just for any actress, but for a South Asian actress.” Because he specifically wrote this character to be played by a South Asian, which was just something that I really respected him for doing, because he didn’t have to. It could have been played by anybody.

And after that Zoom meeting, I think it was a few more weeks that went by and I didn’t hear anything, and I was so stressed out. And I actually wrote him a letter telling him how much I loved the role and how honored I would be to play it. And then they asked me to do a screen test, but it was very different. It wasn’t the typical screen test in person, it was just through Zoom. And it was just with him and the casting director, I think they just wanted to have me do one more scene. And then in another week or two, I still didn’t hear anything. And then my agents call me and they’re like, “I hope you like the snow, because you’re moving there.”

KP: That’s so exciting!

RM: Yeah. So I feel like I just told you the longest story ever, but it felt that long.

KP: So much of the process of getting things going in Hollywood it seems is just a lot of hurry up and wait. It’s just like you do something and then you wait forever.

RM: It’s true.

KP: But then it’ll pay off in the end.

RM: Totally.

KP: Indira is just a fantastic character. What were some of the qualities about her that you were really drawn to?

RM: I was drawn to just how much she doesn’t care what people think about her, because that’s so not me in real life. I care a lot about what people think about me in real life. So it’s really liberating to play a character who has zero vanity. She’s not a people pleaser and she’s so dedicated to her work even though it’s very difficult for her and she’s drowning in debt.

But I think that what drives her is her calling to protect people, to serve and protect. As cliche as that sounds, I think that really is what drives her. And she’s disappointed when we meet her because I think that she’s had a lot of reality checks and doesn’t feel like she’s helping anybody and certainly not herself. And I think what was so exciting about playing Indira was that a lot of the times when we have cop characters, especially women, you just see them in the job. You don’t get to see their personal life. Whereas with Indira, we see a lot of her personal life and then it’s falling apart and it’s messy. And I just thought that was so interesting to explore and to see.

KP: She does have some financial problems and a lot of that is because of her man-child husband played by Lukas Gage. The two of you together – and you have some great co-stars in the season – but can you talk a little bit about that relationship, what that does to her as a character and how you prepared for that part of her life?

RM: I had the opportunity to shadow a cop before I started shooting, which was instrumental in understanding so much about Indira and her work. And I also spoke with a few other cops on the phone just through connections. And one of them told me, “You are only as okay as the people who hold you.” And she’s speaking specifically as somebody working in law enforcement because you’re putting yourself, your life on the line every time you go to work. And when you come home and you don’t have a safe space, it affects everything about the way you do your work and the way you do your job. And that’s what really, it just made a lot of sense to me when working on Indira that she’s not okay because her home is not okay, and her financial debt is not okay, and her marriage is not okay.

And on top of that, the work is not okay. So that’s kind of how I approached it. And I think that it was something that I really had to grapple with why she stays in this marriage. And I think she just doesn’t initially have the option because they’re drowning in debt. She’s the breadwinner. She’s dealing with so much that it’s not really an option for her to leave this marriage right now because it’s just another challenge that she’ll have to face, just another obstacle for her until obviously it gets to the point where she cannot stay. And I’m so proud of her for not staying.

KP: We get to really see a progression for her and where she gets to become someone who’s very self-reliant, thanks in part to some help from some other sources. But I think by the end of the season, it’s really clear that she’s in a position to accept this offer because of the person that she’s been all along and the work that she’s done all along.

RM: Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I think that Lorraine [(Jennifer Jason Leigh]) is not somebody who she would’ve imagined working for one day, and I think there’s a lot of differences between them, but there’s also, and they see it themselves, there’s also some similarities between them. I think they’re both fighters. They both have had to fight very, very hard to be where they are. And they understand that about each other, that they’re not going to go down without a fight. And I think Indira is inspired by Lorraine in a lot of ways, and especially by her empowered state of being and her freedom as somebody who’s financially not in debt. And [Lorraine] offers her a hand out of a situation where she’s quite literally drowning. So she doesn’t really have any other option. It’s either that or she stays in her job and continues to be in debt. And Lorraine is her way out.

KP: Let’s talk about sharing the screen with Jennifer Jason Leigh, and with Juno Temple, who are both just fantastic actresses and all three of you are just so great in this season.

RM: Thank you.

KP: Can you talk about working with them?

RM: I loved working with them so much and I’m so sad it was just for one season. It’s the type of thing where you’re like, “Oh my God, this is what I want to do for five seasons.” But sadly, no. They’re both incredible. And all of us have become very close in real life, and that’s not something that I imagined would happen. I just thought that I’d probably work with these people who are such seasoned, incredible, talented actresses, and I’ll probably never see them again, but that’s so not the case. And I learned so much from working with each of them, and I’m just so grateful for how both of them in their own ways were so giving and so supportive and just so lovely.

KP: What is something that you learned from this experience being on Fargo, playing this character, that you’re going to carry with you as you move forward in your career?

RM: I learned that I love cold weather. I always thought I didn’t like it, but now I know I love it. I love snow. Everybody else was miserable throughout the entire shooting of being in Calgary, but I was like, “Can I live here for forever?” And then the other thing is that, and I kind of talked about this earlier. I had basically pigeonholed myself. I was like, “No one’s going to believe me as this character. Why should I even audition for it?” And it really made me realize that I’m capable of doing so much more than I thought, and I should never pigeonhole myself like that. And sometimes you may not see something, but other people might see something. So I would say it’s really broadened my vision of what I can do and what I want to do and given me so much. I mean, it sounds so cheesy, but it’s true. It’s really given me a lot of confidence that I didn’t have before.

Fargo season 5 is available to stream on Hulu. Richa Moorjani is Emmy eligible in the category of Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for Fargo.