Netflix ropes in Sarayu Blue for ‘Unaccustomed Earth’
Netflix gave the green light for adapting Unaccustomed Earth, based on Jhumpa Lahiri’s award-winning 2008 collection of short stories, in April 2025.
The streaming platform has ordered eight episodes for this upcoming series version with John Wells and Madhuri Shekar attached to co-write. Most recently, they have roped in Sarayu Blue for the series.
According to a Variety exclusive, Expats star Blue has joined the cast of Unaccustomed Earth with the previously announced actors. She will portray Ruma, who, as per the streamer, is a “self-assured and ambitious Bengali-American mother”, anchoring the family single-handedly.
With a smile that disarms and a will of iron, this accomplished attorney and devoted mother holds her family of free-spirited dreamers together, shouldering the bulk load of responsibilities with a quiet determination.
Blue joins forces with Freida Pinto, Indraneil Sengupta, Adi Roy, and Iyla Sundersingh Mckaig, who were announced previously. Pinto will portray Parul Chaudhury, serving as the lead for the Netflix series. Meanwhile, Sengupta will play Jail, and Roy will star as Kaushik. Lastly, Sundarsingh Mckaig will portray Hema.
According to Netflix, the upcoming adaptation is “an epic, soapy and culturally vibrant drama about a tight-knit Indian American community navigating lore, desire, and belonging”. Ritesh Batra will take the director’s chair while Wells and Shekar will executive produce. Additionally, Batra will direct and executive produce the first two episodes.
Alongside them, Lahiri, Nisha Ganatra, Erica Saleh, Erin Jontow, and Celia Costas will also serve as executive producers. Unaccustomed Earth is set in an Indian American enclave in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and follows the long-buried romance between a dedicated wife and her long-lost love. As the sparks fly, this rekindled romance sets off a powder keg of emotions, where tradition and expectation hold sway, and the consequences of desire are both exhilarating and devastating.
Warner Bros Television, in association with John Wells Productions, will serve as the studio behind the show.