'Sort Of' star and co-creator Bilal Baig is defying expectations — even their own
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Canadian writer and actor Bilal Baig thought they’d left the limelight, and then their hit show “Sort Of” happened. Now, less than a year after the series debuted, Baig and the show’s co-creator, Fab Filippo (“Queer as Folk”), have won some of Canada’s top entertainment awards and even earned a Peabody nomination.
“I’d kind of run away from making art when ‘Sort Of’ happened. I was moving more into working with nonprofits, developing programming behind the scenes, and really not at the center of any sort of creative endeavor,” said Baig, who uses gender-neutral pronouns.
In “Sort Of,” Baig is very much front and center, playing the series’ protagonist, Sabi — a role that made them the first queer South Asian Muslim actor to lead a Canadian prime-time television series. Sabi is a Toronto native who balances working at a queer bookstore and bar with nannying for a hip, dysfunctional upper-middle-class family — and managing complicated relationships with friends, family and love interests.
Like Sabi, Baig is a mid-20s Toronto-area native who grew up in a big Pakistani Muslim immigrant family. And while the character and their co-creator identify differently — Sabi identifies as nonbinary/gender-fluid, while Baig identifies as queer and trans-feminine — both move in queer, millennial worlds.
“Sort Of” isn’t the first production for which Baig has pulled inspiration from their culture and queerness. Their play “Acha Bacha” is about a young queer Muslim man, Zaya, who, like Sabi, is dealing with issues around giving and receiving love and the ways gender and family play into that. For Zaya, that means seeing his two worlds, represented by his genderqueer partner and his mother, come crashing in on each other.
“I have these artistic obsessions. I’m obsessed with South Asian moms, queerness, of course, and gender expression — and this notion of constant change,” Baig said of the through lines in their work, one of which has been their characters’ ability to evolve.
The instant success of “Sort Of,” as well as the international attention in the form of the Peabody nod and a recent Time magazine profile, caught Baig somewhat off-guard. In their estimation, viewers could easily have neglected the show. But they chalk up its popularity to the fact that it and Sabi offer something new to the cultural landscape.
“Of course, there’s been representations of trans characters, trans-feminine characters and some nonbinary characters — but not quite in this way, in this genre. The quality of Sabi is different than what I’ve seen, historically,” Baig said, referring to the character’s richness and realism.
It was important to Baig that Sabi wasn’t the only character who gets to be complex. Sabi’s ex-boyfriend Lewis (Gregory Ambrose Calderone) at first seems like a cisgender, straight man making excuses but, as the series goes on, turns out to have actually felt invisible in the relationship. And Sabi’s best friend, 7ven (Amanda Cordner), who is also nonbinary, on paper seems like the perfect confidant, until it turns out that maybe 7ven’s not really listening at all.
“How we define ourselves, for me at least, changes pretty frequently. What I love about ‘Sort Of’ is the way we apply that to all the characters: Nobody’s one thing.” Baig said. “We break down stereotypes when we’re able to see people in multiple dimensions and ways.”
“Sort Of” brings nuance to its characters through humor. The series’ deadpan comedy pokes fun at life’s everyday absurdities and tragedies, which Baig said they come by honestly.
“My family has always been hilarious to me,” Baig said. “The tone of the show felt really right, because we’re not reaching for joke after joke and a punch line. We embrace the heartache that also exists alongside the comedy.”
Baig added: “It feels really right that we’re in this place where we can just start to see lots of different people, from lots of different communities, in their fullness. Someone like Sabi can be funny and can be sad and confused and heartbroken. And I want more of that, for all of us.”
Baig has made a career of giving life to often-unseen characters, including those from the Muslim world. It has only been in the last few years, with shows like “Sort Of” and Hulu’s “Ramy,” that Muslim characters have been portrayed in mainstream North American comedies, which Baig said makes those representations particularly important.
“I’m not saying anything groundbreaking. We know what the representation has been for this community, with terrorist roles or convenience store owner roles. And I think we are ready to move beyond that and go a little deeper into the truth of the experience,” Baig said.
Baig is in production for season two of “Sort Of.” Although they couldn’t have predicted the response to the show, the “Sort Of” creators had begun developing the second season even before the first wrapped. Still, Baig said, making the show has been a unique experience this time around.
“One of the differences going into this season, particularly as an actor, is I felt like I could trust it all a little bit more now,” they said. “What we’ve created feels special, and to honor it means to be true and real and keep going in that direction. It’s nice going into work, knowing that the show has already had such an impact and that you get to continue. It’s a real privilege.”
Although Baig wears many hats on the set of “Sort Of,” they didn’t set out to be a multi-hyphenate. And, now that they are, they don’t intend to be one forever.
“If I continue to work in this industry, I can’t wait to write an episode on somebody else’s show — and that’s the only thing I do on it — and then maybe act in something for two episodes,” Baig said with a laugh.
