Yahoo News Mean Girls star Rajiv Surendra was nicknamed Martha Stewart on set for his love of knitting
Sucka emcees still got nothin' on Kevin G — who is now a lifestyle king.
Mean Girls star Rajiv Surendra revealed that he was referred to as Martha Stewart on the set of the 2004 teen comedy because of his love of knitting and pottery.
The actor, who portrayed math nerd Kevin Gnapoor in the film, says his passion for handicraft — including calligraphy and bookbinding, among other things — stems from childhood. So much so that Mean Girls screenwriter Tina Fey used him as a resource for her own crafty endeavors.
"I've been obsessed with making things since I was a little kid," Surendra told GQ in a new interview. "Even when we were filming Mean Girls, I was working at this Pioneer Village spinning wool. Tina Fey found out, and when she was pregnant with her first daughter, Alice, she asked for some wool and I sent her some yarn that I had spun. She was learning how to knit."
CBS via Getty Images; The Drew Barrymore Show/YouTube Rajiv Surendra in 'Mean Girls'; Surendra now, on 'The Drew Barrymore Show'
He continued, "So they were really familiar on set. They called me Martha Stewart because they knew I did pottery and knitted and everything."
Surendra cited shooting Kevin G's infamous rap song for the fictional North Shore High School's talent show scene as his favorite memory from set, saying Fey and star Amy Poehler "were so passionate about it."
"They took me to some abandoned classroom in this high school we were shooting in and they were like, 'Ok, let's go through it together,'" he recalled. "They were coaching me. But the etiquette on set is that they aren't supposed to do that."
"I was like, 'Why are they doing this? It's just some silly rap,'" he explained. "I didn't know that… they knew it was going to be a big thing… It wasn't until the movie came out that I understood. They knew that that was something the audience would really like. They knew it was important that I did it a certain way."
These days, Surendra has swapped filming rap songs for instructional lifestyle videos. In addition to running a calligraphy business in New York, he is a contributor to HGTV's Handmade YouTube channel, sharing guides on everything from chalk art to bookbinding to paper marbling for a series called Life With Rajiv.
He recently appeared on The Drew Barrymore Show to give host Drew Barrymore a tutorial on calligraphy. Watch it below.
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