Best of the Best asked Maitreyi Ramakrishnan and Priyanka Kedia to look like lifelong dance partners in a competitive Bollywood-fusion team. Their preparation began with a demanding boot camp, not a simple rehearsal period, and the physical trust it created became central to the film’s finale.
Netflix’s own interview makes the answer clear: the actors trained together for months, moving through multiple dance styles and learning how to support one another before the larger cast joined the rehearsals.
- Release: Streaming now
- Leads: Maitreyi Ramakrishnan and Priyanka Kedia
- Setting: UCLA competitive dance
- Streaming on: Netflix
The leads started with an intensive boot camp
Kedia said the pair began with several weeks of boot camp in Los Angeles. Their schedule included long days across contemporary, hip-hop, classical, K-pop and jazz-funk styles, plus partner work. The goal was technical, but it was also emotional: Maya and Anjali are childhood friends, and the performers had to make that ease believable quickly.
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The boot camp continued into rehearsals in New Jersey, where the two worked with a smaller dance group before the rest of the actors joined. Kedia described the routine as physically punishing, requiring performers to rethink hydration, sleep and recovery as well as steps.
Partner work built the friendship on screen
Ramakrishnan and Kedia did not simply learn choreography beside one another. They had to hold each other up, move together and trust that the other person would be there during demanding sequences. Kedia called the experience a way of building the characters’ connection from the outside in.
That detail explains why the finale has more weight than a standard competition number. Netflix’s film follows Maya and Anjali as their friendship is tested on the path to a U.S. championship. The final dance has to resolve the group’s movement and the pair’s relationship at the same time.
The finale is meant to feel collective
Kedia singled out the final number as her favorite. She recalled the cast moving together in a V formation and encouraging one another, describing the energy as the culmination of the work the characters and performers had done. That is why the scene reads as a team achievement rather than a solo-star moment.
The preparation also kept the film from treating dance as instant movie magic. The physical demands were real, and the two leads had to develop stamina before they could sell the confidence of competitors who have spent years refining a shared style. Their training explains the precision of the final formation, but it also explains why its emotional release feels earned.
For Ramakrishnan and Kedia, the boot camp gave the fictional friendship a practical foundation. Every lift, count and recovery period became part of the shorthand Maya and Anjali need when the pressure of competition peaks.
Which dance sequence in Best of the Best best shows Maya and Anjali’s partnership? Share your view in the comments.
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