He is a college freshman who loves to skate. Not your typical Indian-American teen, but that’s exactly what drew actor Manish Dayal to his big role in the hit CW series “90201.”
“ ‘90210’ is an exciting series for me to be a part of, and I am thrilled to portray this very unique role – an opportunity that doesn’t come up too often in our business,” Dayal told Desi Talk in a phone interview from Los Angeles, where he was shooting for the series.
Dayal, 27, plays Raj, the new love interest of surfer-girl Ivy (actress Gillian Zinser). He is the only Indian-American on the cast. “90201” is in its third season. The midseason premiere aired Jan. 24, and Dayal’s character will debut Feb. 21.
Raj is a regular guy whose ethnicity doesn’t define him, Dayal feels.
“He’s a normal teenager and he’s relatable,” the actor says, adding that means “Indians are being represented differently.”
Playing Raj came naturally to Dayal because he sees a likeness between his real life and the character he is portraying. “I would say that I’m similar to Raj because he’s laid-back and a young guy who enjoys life, but I wouldn’t be able to relate to some of the depth that occurs in his storyline,” Dayal said.
“He teaches Ivy how to live in the moment and appreciate everything we have now because it may not be here forever.”
Born and raised in South Carolina, Dayal is a graduate of the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He got his theatrical training at The School for Film and Television in New York, now known as the New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts. After five years in the Big Apple, Dayal moved to Los Angeles.
Perhaps best known from his stints on “Rubicon” and “Outsourced” on television or his cameo in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” Dayal says he wants to keep doing work that “accurately portrays” South Asians in the United States. “We are a fast-moving generation and a large group of people that do different things,” he says.
South Asian actors need to move away from stereotypical roles. While the transition has begun, Dayal is impatient with the “slow process.” Playing Raj on “90210” is an integral part of trying to speed up that process, he feels.
Dayal, who has worked with an all-Indian cast in a previous production, sees little difference between that time and his work now on a mainstream American series.
 “It’s not that different on set,” he says. “It’s the material though, which changes the most.”
One of Dayal’s noteworthy characters is Ravi, the smug A-team leader on NBC’s “Outsourced.” He has also guest-starred on the new CBS spinoff “CSI: Las Vegas.” On AMC’s “Rubicon,” he  has portrayed Hal, a code-breaking computer analyst. He has appeared in national advertising campaigns for McDonald’s, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo, Domino’s and Citibank.
Dayal recently starred as Vinay in Shailja Gupta’s “Walkaway,” considered by some as the  as the South Asian male version of “Sex and the City.”
The film was set in New York, and cleverly mocked the situation modern Indian professionals often find themselves in with the subtle pressures and demands of marriage and dowry and the compromises demanded of a cross-cultural couple.
“I liked working on the film because I was able to make a movie for three months with my buddies in New York,” Dayal says. “We are all friends and it made shooting a movie together not feel like work.”
He is currently focused on “90210,” but with the pilot season approaching, he is also busy looking for his next project.
He has diversified his ambitions. “Outside of acting though, I keep myself busy writing,” he says. He finished writing a comedy screenplay last fall and started working with an organization that’s doing relief work in India.
Dayal says he got his work ethic from his parents. His mother was a science teacher before she joined his father in the family business.
While finding his niche in America is important to him, Dayal says he would love to give Bollywood a shot, too.
He did get a small opportunity to do that in a cameo role as a reporter in Karan Johar’s “Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna.”
“It would be a privilege to go back to my roots and work in India,” Dayal says.  The Bollywood film industry is important and has changed filmmaking; it’s innovative and has many talented actors and directors.”
He would love to work with Irrfan Khan. “He is one of the best and he’s an actor I look up to,” Dayal says.
Film is not the only media he restricts himself to, though. In 2008, he played the lead in The New Group’s twice-extended off-Broadway hit “Rafta Rafta,” named by Entertainment Weekly as one of the 10 best plays of the year.  He also starred in the Chester Theatre Company’s award-winning show “Dov and Ali.”
And he dreams big. “If not an actor, I would be a doctor or a pilot,” he says.
A doctor? There’s a stereotype for you.