Bilal Baig Steps Into Their Comfort Zone

It’s hard to believe that Bilal Baig, the self-assured and occasionally self-deprecating star, executive producer, co-creator, and co-writer of HBO Max’s Sort Of, would ever have thought they were unremarkable. Seated on the ferry headed for Bay Ridge and sheathed in a stylish trench over wide-leg jeans and a floral mock-necked body-con top, the multi-hyphenate stands out from the other commuters. Beneath their impeccably windswept bangs sit chunky blue art-gallerist glasses that make me reconsider my lifelong preference for tortoiseshell. “I was not sparkly in any way. I was not really noticeable,” they tell me, reflecting on their roots. “I was pretty lost but also not traumatized by it.”

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