Janina Gavankar

Janina Gavankar
Born	Janina Zione Gavankar (1980-11-29) November 29, 1980 Joliet, Illinois, U.S.
Occupation	Actress/Musician
Years active	2001–present
Height	5' 7"

Janina Zione Gavankar (born November 29, 1980)^[1][2][3] is an American actress and musician. Gavankar is also trained as a pianist, vocalist, and orchestral percussionist.^[4] She majored in Theatre Performance at the University of Illinois at Chicago.^[5][6] Gavankar is also notable for having played Quetsiyah in The Vampire Diaries and Detective Meredith Bose in The Mysteries of Laura.

Gavankar's roles include Papi, a lesbian lothario in The L Word, Leigh Turner, a cop with a big secret on The Gates, Ms. Dewey, the personification of a Microsoft branded search engine who comments about the user's searches, Shiva, the namesake of the sought after trophy on The League, shapeshifter Luna Garza on HBO's True Blood, McKenna Hall on The CW's Arrow, and currently as Meredith Bose on NBC's The Mysteries of Laura.

Personal life

Gavankar was born in Joliet, Illinois to Pete and Mohra Gavankar. Her father, Pete Gavankar, was an Indian engineer who first traveled to the United States to pursue a master's degree. Her mother, Shan-de-Mohra, emigrated to the US from India, and is half-Indian and half-Dutch.^[7] Her father passed away in January 2012.^[8]

Career

Gavankar has acted in theatre, film, television, and online. Her most notable roles include Papi in The L Word, Ms. Dewey, the personification of a Microsoft live search engine, Shiva, the namesake of the sought after trophy on The League, and, most recently, shapeshifter Luna Garza on HBO's True Blood.

She regularly appears in Funny or Die shorts.^[9]

In 2006 she joined the cast of The L Word as a series regular, and shot all of the clips used for Ms. Dewey. In 2007, she landed a lead in CW pilot Dash 4 Cash.^[10] In 2008, Gavankar appeared in TV series Stargate Atlantis, Grey's Anatomy and NCIS, My Boys, and Factory. In 2009, she appeared in the TV shows The Cleaner, Dollhouse, Three Rivers, and The League, as well as indie movies Men, Interrupted, Indian Gangster, and Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey. Gavankar played the voice of Nikki in Quantum Quest. She landed a lead role in the now-canceled ABC Television supernatural drama The Gates.^[11] She appears on CW's Arrow as a former flame to Oliver Queen.

Gavankar is an admitted gamer^[12] and has appeared on, as well as co-hosted, G4 TV's Attack of the Show!, Epileptic Gaming's Up All Night, where she helped review Rock Band, Burnout Paradise, and Army of Two.^[13] As of 2011 Gavankar has become a series regular in HBO's True Blood. She plays a public school teacher and shapeshifter named Luna Garza, who gets romantically involved with one of the main characters of the series.^[14][15] Her indie movie Satellite of Love^[16] premiered at the Dallas International Film Festival in 2012, and her 2012 indie I'm Afraid of Virginia Wolf is currently in post-production.^[17] On December 20, 2012, Gavankar was the last person interviewed for the now cancelled Attack of the Show! which aired on G4 TV.

On August 3, 2013, it was announced that Gavankar landed a role as witch Tessa in the fifth season of The Vampire Diaries.^[18]

Gavankar guest starred in the third season of the acclaimed sitcom Husbands.^[19] In 2014, she starred as Amita in the video game, Far Cry 4.^[20] As of 2014, Gavankar has played the series regular role of Detective Meredith Bose on NBC's The Mysteries of Laura.^[21]

Music

Gavankar has returned to music with a cover of Kanye West's "Love Lockdown".^[22] Gavankar's former all female singing group, Endera, was signed to Cash Money Records Universal Records.^[23] She also collaborated on a project for a song called "Tell Me What" in India with Pratichee Mohapatra of Viva, Deep, and Navraaz. She has had songs licensed to movies and television, and has sung and played marimba on film scores. Gavankar was featured in Russian artist Ella Leya's music video for "Wish I Could",^[24] in the San Francisco band Recliner's music video for their single "Float Away",^[25] as well as the music video for Manu Narayan's band Darunam.^[26]

In August 2012, she released the single for her upcoming EP, entitled Waiting for Godot,^[27] and in November, Billboard premiered the official music video.^[28]

Technology

Gavankar claims to be the first actor to use Twitter, signing up on Richard Branson's computer on Necker Island in 2006.^[29] Gavankar was the personification of Microsoft's interactive search engine Ms. Dewey.^[30] In 2011 she created a free template for actors and artists to help them control their online presence^[31] and in 2012, spoke at the Suits and Spooks Conference about how she discovered a solution for data challenges faced by actors through the use of open source tools.^[32]

Awards

In 2008, Gavankar was nominated for an Asian Excellence Award.^[33] In 2012, Gavankar received the Gravity Summit Award for Excellence in Social Media.^[34]

Filmography

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Janina Gavankar.

• Official website
• Janina Gavankar at the Internet Movie Database
• Janina Gavankar on Twitter
• Janina Gavankar en Lesbicanarias (Spanish)
• Rediff interview on September 7th 2007
• Forbes interview, November 2012