Gavankar was born in Joliet, Illinois, to Ganesh "Peter" Gavankar, an engineer from Mumbai, who first travelled to the U.S. to pursue a master's degree, and Shan Demohra "Mohra" Gavankar, of
half-Indian and half-Dutch descent from Pune, who also emigrated there from India. [8]
In 2011, Gavankar became a series regular in HBO's True Blood as a public school teacher and shapeshifter, Luna Garza, who gets romantically involved with one of the main characters of the series.[15][16]
Her indie film, Satellite of Love,[17] premiered at the Dallas International Film Festival in 2012, and her 2012 indie I'm Afraid of Virginia Wolf is currently in post-production.[18] On December 20, 2012, Gavankar was the last person interviewed for original 2005–2012 run of Attack of the Show!, which aired on G4 TV.[19]
On August 3, 2013, Gavankar landed a role as a witch named Qetsiyah in the fifth season of The Vampire Diaries.[20] She guest starred in the third season of Husbands.[21]
In late 2019, Gavankar joined Apple TV's The Morning Show, as Alison Namazi,[27] co-anchor of the pop culture segment of the titular show.
Starting in 2021, Gavankar had a starring role as the antagonist in seasons 2 & 3 of the ABC hit show, Big Sky, playing the sibling in a mafia family.
In 2023 Gavankar starred in video game Alan Wake 2 as Kiran Estevez, an agent of the Federal Bureau of Control, a role she reprised in The Lake House DLC, released in October 2024.[28]
She 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 films 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",[31] in the music video by San Francisco-based band Recliner for their single "Float Away",[32] as well as the music video for Manu Narayan's band Darunam.[33]
In August 2012, she released the single for her upcoming EP, entitled Waiting for Godot,[34] and in November, Billboard premiered the official music video.[35] It went on to win numerous film festival awards.[36][37]
While in high school, Gavankar auditioned for the front ensemble of the Phantom Regiment Drum and Bugle Corps of Rockford, Illinois. Before hearing whether she had made the corps, she was accepted for the Yale School of Drama's summer camp and went there. "I fell in love with drum corps when I was 13 years old", Gavankar has stated, and remains a strong fan of the activity. When she heard the Martin Garrix/Usher collaboration, "Don't Look Down", she had the idea of performing it as marching music. With assistance from Drum Corps International, she contacted the Jersey Surf Drum and Bugle Corps and arranger Colin Bell. She went into the studios in New York with fifty members of Jersey Surf and recorded the music video "Don't Look Down- #JustAddDrumCorps Edition" that was released in April 2015.[38]
On May 20, 2015, Gavankar performed a percussion duet at Carnegie Hall with Questlove for the Best Buddies charity benefit.[39]
In 2011, she created a free template for actors and artists to help them control their online presence[43] 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.[44]
In 2017, she launched a private discussion forum for members of the games industry.[45]
In 2018, she produced the first narrative film to use the Arri Alexa LF.[46]
Gavankar is a first-round investor in ClassPass.[47]
Awards
In 2008, Gavankar was nominated for an Asian Excellence Award.[48] In 2012, Gavankar received the Gravity Summit Award for Excellence in Social Media.[49]
^Nguyen, Bernie (November 6, 2006). "Ask Janina". Nirali Magazine. p. Arts. Archived from the original on January 22, 2007. Retrieved January 28, 2007.
^ abcSweeney, Miriam E. (2013). "Not just a pretty (inter)face: A critical analysis of Microsoft's 'Ms. Dewey'"(PDF). University of Illinois. Archived from the original(PDF) on August 2, 2020. Retrieved November 27, 2017. As one of my co-workers typed in different words and phrases, the "Ms. Dewey" character (pre-recorded film footage of actress, Janina Gavankar) engages in flirtatious banter, sometimes becoming irritated or condescending if too much time passes before entering a search term: "Hellloooo... type something here!"
^Khan, Natasha. "Janina Gavankar profile". SAPNA Magazine. p. Arts + Entertainment. Archived from the original on January 1, 2016. Retrieved January 3, 2016.
^Bilton, Nick (September 30, 2014). Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal. USA: Portfolio. p. 102. ISBN978-1591847083.
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