Part One - Sindhu Vee: How She Went From Wall Street To Comedic Fame
At a chance appearance in a London comedy club, India-born Sindhu Vee had an epiphany on stage: Comedy was her calling. She has never looked back.
Like many of us, comedian Sindhu Vee, 55, never imagined being in the space she’s in today. As a young woman, she took the conservative path, attending the University of Oxford and University of Chicago for political and business degrees, then, for years, wore a constricting blue suit while climbing the corporate ladder as a Barclays Capital investment banker in London.
But, in 2003 after some soul-searching and following the birth of her first of three children, Vee boldly left her high-profile job to become, as she puts it, a “soccer mom.” Her husband, a Dane, also in finance, was making enough to comfortably support a growing family, so why not?
Vee found by accident that, in addition to being a good mother, she could make people laugh. At a chance appearance in a local comedy club, she had an epiphany on stage: Comedy was her calling. She has turned that epiphany into a career as a full-time stand-up comedian, with all the rejection, acclaim, international touring and hassles that go along with it.
We Zoomed with Vee earlier this week to discover how all of this improbable happenstance well, happened. Following are edited excerpts from a fascinating conversation.
Jim Clash: Yours is an unusual career path. Tell us a bit about how you went from finance to comedy. Those notions are polar opposites.
Sindhu Vee: I was on Wall Street in investment banking, but it wasn't where I had been heading. I was doing a PhD in political theory. At the bank, my boss had five kids, and a couple of nannies. That's how you do it, right? But once I had my own kids, I missed them a lot. I could be doing a yen-dollar derivative trade, and excuse myself to go cry in the bathroom. It was a clash between my maternal instincts and ambitions on Wall Street.
My father told me at the time, “When you're 60, head of the desk as a managing director and have a bunch of money, you'll regret not having been at your kid's fifth birthday party." That was a sign.
After I quit my job in 2003, I became co-chair of the PTA committee, all of that soccer-mom stuff, but I swore at meetings. They told me I couldn't do that [laughs]. I'd drop my kids at play-dates, then go smoke cigarettes around the corner in my car. Something wasn’t right.
Clash: Okay, but that's a long way from standup comedy?
Vee: I'd never seen live standup. I did have a DVD of Eddie Murphy’s I watched on repeat. I'm from India where the is no culture for stand-up. Anyway, I got a chance email from a woman I knew telling a bunch of us she was doing a standup event for charity. You have never met a less-amusing woman, James. I thought, ‘That charity is going bust.'
But there was a line at the end of the email saying that, if you think you're funny, come to one of our comedy workshops. It was a Saturday, and I could hear my kids fighting downstairs. My parents were visiting from India, and my husband, as usual, was traveling. I thought, ‘I've got to get the f’ out of this house or I'll go crazy.’ Why not do something reckless? It was seven pounds Sterling.
Clash: Pretty cheap for being reckless.
Vee: Yes [laughs]. Once there, it was like being in a therapy group of women. We were in a little circle, and each of us had to say something. Later, the woman running the group came over to tell me that I was funny, that I should try something on stage.
I went to a pub in Soho that April and told two stories about my mom. Up there, in front of that microphone, I thought, 'I have to do this again.' I’d never felt like I belonged somewhere like that. It was an epiphany of sorts, and I never stopped. The women there helped me along. The first thing they told me was to take the mic out of the stand. I didn't even know to do that [laughs].
Clash: That's all great, but the world of standup is notoriously tough, with a lot of rejection.
Vee: I have an Indian mother. I'm 5' 10', circus-worthy in India. So I have a pretty thick skin. But I will say this: When you feel so attached to something, you just do it. Dying on stage, getting heckled - no one has ever thrown anything at me - constantly walking into expectations that you'll to be boring or just sh't, all of that becomes irrelevant, just background noise.
Clash: On the way up the comedy ladder, and you clearly are successful now and we'll talk about that, do you remember the first time someone asked for your autograph?
Vee: Yes. It was on my first tour in 2018, and it kept getting extended. I ended up doing like, 90 nights. London is great but when you get into the boonies people can be quite weird - and it's dark, and it's wet, and there are no streetlights. You expect Oliver Twist to show up with a candlestick [laughs].
I was coming out the back entrance of a club, and this guy jumped out from the bushes, like an animal, and asked me to sign a picture. I thought, ‘I’m going to die.' My tour manager came running over. The guy didn't mug me, but it was a bit weird. I signed his photo. After that, they had pictures made, and I would just sign those.
Part 2 - Sindhu Vee: Not Just A Standup Comedian, But An Actress, Too
“With acting scripts, I’m picky about what I will read for. A lot of roles are for Indian ladies. For me, it has to be the right Indian lady.”
In the first part of this interview series with Sindhu Vee, we covered her transformation from Wall Street banker to successful comedian, an unusual route to say the least. But Vee has done more than just standup since her rise in a difficult genre. She has dipped into acting.
Most recently, she stars in the Amazon Prime series, "The Pradeeps Of Pittsburgh," and has a voice part in "That Christmas" on Netflix. She also has appeared in two other Netflix series, "Sex Education" and "Roald Dahl's Matilda The Musical." If that's not enough, Vee has another American project beginning in March, to be announced soon.
Following are edited excerpts from a longer Zoom conversation earlier this week with the comedian/actress.
Jim Clash: How did you get into acting?
Sindhu Vee: Let me tell you, it wasn't planned. I was asked to read in some TV shows my comedian friends had written. I was at first doubtful, but they assured me I'd be great, to just do it. You get on camera and they say, "These are your lines." It's all pretty standard. But when they asked me to read for "Matilda,” that scared the sh*t out of me. I had to play Mrs. Phelps, a librarian.
After a long chat with the director, I understood why they had selected me. I don't like not being good at stuff. I like to do research before working. But I was told that so much of acting is pure instinct. And I had it naturally. The other stuff you can learn, like camera angles, etc. I just accepted that.
When I get asked to read for parts now, I send in a casting tape, do my best and, if I get a role, I get it. But I'm picky about what I read for. A lot of roles are for Indian ladies. It has to be the right Indian lady.
Clash: Would you say that you attract more of an Indian audience for your standup because you're of Indian descent?
Vee: When I was doing comedy for the first eight years, I didn't have an Indian audience here [England]. I was on BBC Radio 4, with a typically white audience. I was covering material every one understood. I didn't just talk about how my kids were annoying, as they are so westernized and because I'm so Indian, but about how all kids are annoying [laughs].
It was only during COVID-19 when everything went online that the Indian audience became more prevalent. I went on Instagram and TikTok because we're all YouTubers now, you know?
So when the first gigs started in 2021 after the pandemic, and I was working on a new show, half of the room was suddenly Indian. I was like, where did they come from? I don't talk about race or the politics of colonization because I'm not first or second generation like other Indian comedians in England. I'm from India. So when I'm in the west I don't expect people to think I'm like them, and I don't want to be like them. It's, "I'm Indian, by the way."
The largest Indian audience I've had in North America was on my tour last year. I've never been in rooms so brown. I loved it, because I can speak two different languages and have some fun in the room. But that's more a function of the Internet, and less a function of my material.
Clash: Over the years I’m sure that your approach to comedy has changed?
Vee: It takes years to find your voice. As mine develops, I say less about my parents because I lost them recently. I'm coming out more with my own western-type material, and some Indians say, "What?" For example, sex. They need to get ready, because I'm a comedian.
As I mentioned, I've been in films with a role as an Indian mom, which I do very well because I was very close to my mom, and that has brought in different audiences. One of them is eight-year-old kids, because of “Matilda.”
From interviews with Jim Clash
The full articles:
Part 1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimclash/2025/02/14/sindhu-vee-how-she-went-from-wall-street-to-comedic-fame/
Part 2: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimclash/2025/02/15/sindhu-vee-more-than-just-a-standup-comedian-but-actress-too/