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Yvonne Strahovski didn’t always intend to add the celebrity investor title to her resume. It happened in a way many hopeful Hollywood collaborators dream of: with a random knock on the door.

While filming season five of The Handmaid’s Tale in Toronto, a delivery of skin care samples from Canada-based clean beauty brand Sahajan — known for being a pioneer in Ayurvedic beauty — arrived at the actress’ makeup trailer. “Keeping the bag I was gifted [was unusual] because ordinarily, I would hand it off. Being a mom of three, I just don’t want to carry around stuff,” Strahovski tells The Hollywood Reporter.

That was around August 2022, recalls the Australian-born star and mother of three boys. “I put the serum on first, and that’s when I was like, ‘Oh this is really amazing.’ It’s a beautiful product. That’s what sold me on trying the rest of it,” she says.

It was kismet a year later when her team reached out to Sahajan founder Lisa Mattam as the company was in the middle of seed funding. One Zoom meeting later, Strahovski was among investors in the company’s seed funding that also included artist and poet Rupi Kaur, Lululemon exec Celeste Burgoyne, Colorado-based Ridgeline Ventures (which has also backed outdoor gear brand Cotopaxi and Bobo’s food products) and Toronto-based Wonderment Ventures. The brand is currently available online in the U.S. at Credo Beauty, Detox Market, Amazon and sahajan.com.

“When [Yvonne] first reached out, and this is very sincere … so it was pretty wild,” Mattam tells THR. “Her manager called me and said, ‘She can’t get it out of her mind.’ That was her exact sentence. I’ll say we’ve been very blessed along the way to get some really neat, notable individuals like Poorna [Jagannathan] who genuinely loves the brand. But when it’s someone who’s never met you, you never reached out to them and they come to you? I know brands say, ‘I want a brand ambassador,’ and that’s a very important strategic initiative. I genuinely believe that because of the organic nature [that] this was very different. … Sometimes the universe delivers to you when you don’t even realize.”

On Tuesday, Mattam and Strahovski celebrated the brand’s soon-to-launch Eternal Glow Cream with an intimate brunch at the Santa Santa Monica Proper Hotel. Guests including Handmaid’s Tale co-star Ever Carradine, Deli Boys actress Poorna Jagannathan, fashion photographer Nisha Johny, Real Housewives of Toronto star and Ana app co-founder Roxy Earle, content creator Sasha Exeter and others enjoyed a South Asian-infused menu of turmeric lattes, buckwheat pancakes, avocado toast drizzled with saffron oil and gluten-free Ayurvedic almond banana bread with a side of ghee.

Mattam founded Sahajan 10 years ago after seeing her then-toddler daughter play with her anti-aging creams and “I remember thinking, ‘I had no idea what the ingredients in that skin care is going to do to your young, beautiful skin.’ I remember taking her upstairs and saying, ‘If you want to play with things, [this] is what you should play with,’ and there were these little bottles that my parents had brought back from a recent trip to India. It was in that moment that I thought, ‘OK, if my skin care isn’t [safe] enough for her, it likely isn’t [safe] enough for me.”

Looking back on when she launched the brand, “there would never have been turmeric lattes for brunch,” says Mattam. “I could see how the world had evolved to [being open to] yoga and how [people] were starting to dive into these South Asian and Eastern practices. I was like, ‘But we haven’t gone here yet with beauty.’ I fundamentally believe you can get your best strength from these ingredients, and there was nobody talking about it [then]. And so I was like, I know that I can be this conduit. My parents grew up in Kerala, the southern state of India, and it’s actually the epicenter of Ayurvedic study. So if you were to go on an Ayurvedic retreat, nine times out of 10, you would end up where they’re from. For them, we never talked about Ayurveda. It was just the way they did things.”

In addition to getting into the beauty business, Strahovski is finding ways to stay busy after wrapping The Handmaid’s Tale, in which she starred as Gilead wife Serena Joy Waterford. She has yet to see the seventh and final season of the Hulu series based on Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel of the same name.

As for how she plans to say goodbye to the woman she’s played for nearly a decade? “Well, I mean, I know everything that’s happened, but I just need to sit down and finally watch the thing! I’m gonna do it with my friends,” she says, sans kids and in one marathon sitting.

“In this time of not being on camera, I’d love to busy myself with everything else I can possibly can,” she adds. Viewers can watch her channel another type of mother in her directorial debut, Vlog, a short film about the behind-the-scenes life of a mommy vlogger. (It’s set to debut on a soon-to-be-confirmed streaming platform soon.) She’s also set to star in and executive produce A Woman of Intelligence, on which she’s partnering with PatMa Productions founder Nina Tassler and president Joan Boorstein.

How did you go from being a fan of the brand to an investor?

It really was just an intuitive pull. I honestly just couldn’t stop thinking about it. And I thought, Oh, I just noticed myself thinking about that. That’s weird. I don’t normally feel that way, nor am I even remotely interested in anything like this and so I just kind of threw it out there. I called my manager actually, and I said, “I know this sounds crazy, but I tried this product and I really did like it. And if there was anything ever to do in the future, this would be the company that I would want to partner up with.”

So that’s when we reached out and that’s when [Lisa and I] met on Zoom, and then I became an investor.

Nobody arranged or planned any of this; it just was a very organic thing. Aside from Lisa sending the product, it wasn’t like she was reaching out to partner up and do anything together. I was the one to reach out to her in the end.

Judging from the introduction speeches you and Lisa both gave before brunch, it seems like you’re both on the same wavelength, which is very much needed if you’re going to be in business with someone.

It’s easy to see how amazing Lisa is, she’s just got such a vision. This is clearly a passion for her and she has an amazing, unique background too — she comes from a science background. Her story too, obviously we connected as moms. She wanted a clean product back when her daughter started playing with her skin care. I totally relate. I’ve been either pregnant or breastfeeding for the last seven years of my life! I want to make sure that anything that’s in my house is [safe]. I’m trying to do the best that I can to stay healthy and this has been a part of it.

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How would you describe your approach to beauty and wellness?

It has to be fairly natural and clean and organic. I have to genuinely like the product as well. I just go minimal. I’m not really a super product-y person, so when I find a thing that I love, I commit to it for a really long time. Most women would probably laugh at my makeup kit, it really just consists of sometimes-used mascara and a brow brush and some foundation. When it comes to actual makeup, I don’t really own eyeshadow or anything like that. It’s just more about skin care and keeping it clean and natural.

And sitting in the hair and makeup chair probably has you feeling like you just want to wipe it all off at the end of the day.

Yes. I’ve actually been really surprised at the cleansing oil, it’s amazing at the end of the work day on set too, where you do have a lot on your face, and it’s amazing from taking it all off and it’s so nourishing. It’s really beautiful, genuinely.

How else do you stay in the know about the beauty world?

I’m pretty reliant mostly on Tamah Krinsky, who does my makeup in L.A. She loves all the clean beauty, so she’s a really great resource for me. Derek Syuen, who does my hair, and makeup artists along the way that I’ve worked with at work as well. I’m pretty loyal, once I find the one thing, it’s pretty hard to get me to change — I do love hearing about all the new stuff in the clean space.

What are some other essentials that you always keep on your person?

I mean I’m obsessed with [Sahajan’s Lip Karma lip balm] and I usually keep Ambre Blends [fragrance]. There’s usually some crayons in my bag, there’s usually some random surprise thing that I know I can use in a pinch if my kids need some entertainment. A diaper, you know!

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In addition to Sahajan, what other projects are you working on that you can mention?

I partnered up with [producers] Nina Tassler and Joan Boorstein for a book [Karin Tanabe’s A Woman of Intelligence] that we’re working on a pilot for. I’m getting into the producing space a little bit [more] and then we will be releasing my short that I made [Vlog] soon as we cleared some of those music breaks, so that’s really holding us back. … It premiered at Palm Springs and then we did six other festivals. We went to Australia. In this time of not being on camera, I’d love to busy myself with everything else I can possibly can. There’s one surprise project through … but that’ll be kind of a longer process.

What convinced you to go from a fan of the brand to investor?

I think it was more Lisa’s story, her personalization and her culture and that she grew up in South India and she was embedded in Ayuvedic culture and then she has her science background.

Her whole story really spoke to me and how it was [inspired] by children. That was sort of the straw that broke the camel’s back before she launched into this whole endeavor. It’s not even necessarily that it’s Ayurvedic, it’s just that she has made a point to do something to a high standard that’s clean and it was inspired by the fact that she wanted her children to have support as well, her daughter especially. I think that just really resonates with me as a fellow mom.