daya vaidya twins
The “Unforgettable” actress, who is already mom to two-year-old Leela Grace, is “beyond excited and doing great.”
Daya spoke about the moment she discovered they were expecting twins.
Vaidya said, “Even when my doctor saw only one baby in our first ultrasound, my husband said he strangely felt there were two babies. When they finally saw the second baby at three months, my jaw dropped to the floor, and my husband said with a huge smile, ‘I told you so!’”
The actress adds, “I know we’ll have our hands full, but we’re beyond thrilled about our two little additions. We have our health, our careers and with the birth of our boys, our family will be complete. We couldn’t feel more lucky.”
Vaidya added on Twitter:
“Yes, I’m having identical twin boys in July! Just got back from an ultrasound and they’re looking good! Soooo happy!”
The actress said that the doctor only saw one baby in the ultra sound at first. Vaidya told Life & Style:
“Even when my doctor saw only one baby in our first ultrasound, my husband said he strangely felt there were two babies. When they finally saw the second baby at three months, my jaw dropped to the floor, and my husband said with a huge smile, ‘I told you so!’”
Vaidya, 38, already has one child with Wallace. Leela Grace is two-and-a-half years old. Vaidya told Big City Moms shortly after having Leela, that it was the most memorable experience of her life. Vaidya said:
“The first time I held her. More recently when Leela said ‘I love you mommy.’”
The actress wasn’t slowed down much by her first pregnancy, but she’s a little worried about carrying two babies at once. Vaidya said:
“I literally hiked mountains during my ninth month… With twins, it’s like walking around with a boulder in my belly and a belt around my lungs. I can barely walk two blocks, and I’m only in my fifth month!”
Vaidya credits her parents for encouraging her career in the arts. Trained in dance and drama at an early age she moved on to acting for television, stage and film. On “Unforgettable,” she plays Detective Nina Inara, a role that is the second female lead after the show’s star, Poppy Montgomery, who plays a New York police detective with an uncanny sense of memory.
Vaidya — a native of Oakland, Calif. — spoke to India-West from New York, where she has lived for the past three months with her husband and their two-and-a-half-year-old daughter.Q: The neat thing about your parents is that they encouraged you to be artistic from the get-go.
A: They put me into theater when I was young, and dance, and I just never stopped. My dad was my biggest cheerleader, too, and always pushed me in that direction. It’s a hard road, when things wouldn’t pan out. Both of them would say, “Don’t give up. No matter what.” Especially with my dad being Indian, there wasn’t any pressure to be a doctor or lawyer; my friends from Indian families often that was the case. But he wasn’t like that at all.
I feel proud about my being Indian and excited that you guys are doing this piece, because it’s something most people don’t know. I feel very proud of being Indian and my dad was so important to me. I would love to put that out there — that’s who I am. I’m not only that but it’s part of who I am!
Q: Tell us about the character you play on “Unforgettable.” She is described as street smart but I’m sure there’s a lot more to her than that.
A: Street smart, street savvy (laugh)! I’m tough and also vulnerable, that kind of complex dichotomy they let me play. I love that. I think the role was originally open ethnicity. I tend to often play Puerto Rican or Latin or Spanish roles because I’m mixed, and because of how I grew up. They don’t look at me as Indian for some reason.
What was great about those producers was that they were very open to what I wanted to bring to it. I kind of decided who she was, in a way. They’ve been following me, and I have a lot of room. They’re writing it as we go, following what I tell them.
She’s from Queens and there are a lot of Indians in Queens so I think she’s a mixed girl, like me. We don’t quite know what she’s mixed with but she’s multicultural, she’s street savvy just like I was — how I grew up in Oakland, she grew up in the street in Queens.
Q: When will you know whether the show is getting picked up?
A: We will know any minute now, within the next week. We’ll find out if we get the “back nine,” which is the full series pickup. Right now we have 13 episodes so that takes us till December. A full season would take us till March.
You find that out based on your ratings. We’ve gotten number one in our time slot, and number 15 in all the shows by number of viewers, over 14 million viewers. We’ve got a 2.5 share, I think. CBS will make a decision soon but it looks good. Knock on wood.
To be on CBS is, like, huge. For an actor, it’s the cream of the crop network. There are more Indians on TV now and in general, you’re seeing more diversity. That’s all I care about.Q: What was it like to audition for this role on “Unforgettable”?
A: It’s been a long road and it was tough for me. I had a baby in 2009 and after that I had taken a break to be a mother, and when I tried to come back, I got dropped by my agent. Basically, every meeting I went in to, I was told no way would I work again. It was really rough. They always say — it’s the old cliché — it’s darkest before the dawn.
Q: Why would they say that?
A: It’s weird in our business; they don’t say it out loud, because they’re not allowed to. The code word was “I’ve lost momentum,” because I took a year off to be a mom.
If you’re A-list, and you have a baby, with all the publicity, you can kind of spin it, and it’s cool. But when you’re a working actor, like I was, it’s not as cool. It was really hard coming back. I was always working, always doing guest stars and recurring [roles], and I had done a movie, but I hadn’t gotten a network show. I hadn’t gotten something that was “on the radar.” So the attitude was “You’re done. You’re a wash.”
I’d go into meetings and they’d say, “We loved your tape, awww, but … mmmm …,” and then I met my manager. His name is Rob D’Avola, and he was like a soul mate of a manager. He was a really hard worker and he believed in me. He’s always supported me being a mother and that was never an issue. I completely appreciate everything he did — he got me out, he got me in the rooms.
He signed me, and during pilot season we just hit it hard. I was running because I knew I wanted to prove everyone wrong.
I was so mad that I’d been dropped and people said I couldn’t do it, being a mother, and I wanted to say “No. You can be a mom, and you can have a career, and you can be a good mom, and you can have a good career!” I was really determined to prove that. Maybe that gave me that little extra fire.
This was one of the last auditions of the season, actually. I was frustrated, but I walked into this room and this role just spoke to me, and I just knew it. It was it. I was like, “This is my role.” And I got it, and we got picked up, and it’s been really amazing.
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