“Oh, Fuck Off”: Sunita Mani on Tariffs, Allergies, and Intimacy Coordinators

Take a look at Sunita Mani’s IMDb page and you’ll recognize her as the secret weapon in any number of hit television shows from Mr. Robot to Glow, the beloved Netflix series about a madcap group of women’s wrestlers that was cancelled, prematurely, in 2020. More recently, though, Mani has been breaking out in the world of film, appearing alongside Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega in A24’s Death of a Unicorn and Karan Soni and Jonathan Groff in A Nice Indian Boy, which hit theaters last month. At heart, though, Mani is a New York comic (and former member of the Upright Citizen’s Bridgade), which made her the perfect subject for this week’s Rorschach Test. Before she got too busy with two more big projects on the horizon—an Apple TV+ comedy, Government Cheese, and a Netflix limited series—we asked Mani to sound off on a number of polarizing topics, including tariffs, ChatGPT, congestion pricing, and, of course, seasonal allergies.

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UNICORNS

“I kind of love that we’re taking the unicorn out of Candy Land children’s mythology and bringing some ominous power to them. “

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TARIFFS

“Oh, fuck off. You know when you’re playing store with your friends when you’re four years old? [Trump] is like the bully taking over the game and ruining the rules and the fun for everyone. I am so ashamed.”

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INTIMACY COORDINATORS

“At first I was like, what is this job? But now I’m obsessed. I’ve had only good experiences. My last experience was with one of the pioneers—her name’s Ita O’Brien—and I worked with her in London. The way we choreographed the sex scene felt like Avenue Q: The Musical or something. It was like, five, six, seven, you touch his ass, he grabs your wrist, then sway, sway, pump, pump, pam, pam, look to camera! It was like over-the-top sex choreography and it was hilarious.“

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CHATGPT

“I don’t fucking care. I just don’t. And I kind of think it’s evil and only going to be manipulated out of our control. Anyway.“

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SEASONAL ALLERGIES

“I’m brought to my knees every year. They hit me as a complete surprise, as if I’ve never had them before. “

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ROM-COMS

“Who doesn’t dream of being the messy girl in a bun in a rom com? I definitely would love to play that girl someday.”

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MANHATTAN VS. BROOKLYN

“Brooklyn, baby. I can’t imagine living in the city. It really feels like it’s all lines and banks.“

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BOLLYWOOD

“Well, my family are very serious Indians with lots of rules. But when we would have big family gatherings, all the cousins and the aunts together, that’s when we would watch Bollywood movies together and talk through all of it. My cousins and I would make sketches based on the things that we saw and we would put on these talent shows and pageants. So [Bollywood] definitely planted a very early seed of theatricality in me.“

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WRESTLING

“Wrestling changed my life in that it gave me this Greek heroine superpower energy. It’s so incredibly empowering when you’re just milking it. I am so sad that [Glow] got squashed, but if anything, I should remind myself that I need to fight for what I believe in and keep being anti-fascist. “

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HECKLERS

“I really think heckling has saved me ‘cause I feel like it can curry favor with the audience. The audience was on my side every time I got heckled.“

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CONGESTION PRICING

“Well, it’s working, so I’m sort of like, get all the cars out of the city. We should just have way more sophisticated modes of public transit and affordable ways to move around anyway.“

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GEN-Z

“Thinking about Gen Z makes me feel so old, like I am perpetually stuck in like millennial emo vibes. But I think we should be listening to them.“

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