Janina Gavankar

Janina Gavankar, whose full name is Janina Zione Gavankar, was born in Joliet, Illinois, on 29 November 1980, the daughter of Indian immigrants from Mumbai and Pune. Before she ever stood in front of a camera, music was her thing: she trained as a pianist, vocalist and orchestral percussionist, an artistic side she has never entirely left behind.

The queen of TV supporting roles

Over two decades she has become one of those indispensable faces of American television. She was the seductive Papi in The L Word (2004) and, above all, the shapeshifter Luna Garza in the vampire phenomenon True Blood (2008), one of her most memorable roles. From there she strung together characters in The Vampire Diaries (2009), The Mysteries of Laura (2014) and Sleepy Hollow (2013), before settling into the front line with The Morning Show (2019), Big Sky (2020), Never Have I Ever (2020) and The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window (2022).

From indie cinema to video games

On the big screen she has chosen wisely. She shone in the acclaimed Blindspotting (2018), took on the redemption drama The Way Back (2020) and joined the zany universe of Borderlands (2024). But there is one role that has turned her into a gaming icon: she gave body, voice and face to the imperial soldier Iden Versio in the video game 'Star Wars Battlefront II' (2017), a much-praised performance that proved her versatility well beyond film and television.

A born artist

Because, beyond acting, Gavankar is a complete artist: a multi-instrumentalist musician who has played on film scores and also a filmmaker, her horror short 'Stucco' having won a special jury prize at the SXSW festival. Discreet about her private life, she lets her many-sided talent speak for her. Isn't that creative restlessness, taking her from film sets to the stage and the director's chair, exactly what makes her so singular?

The earliest credit MovieNCo has for Janina Gavankar is The L Word (2007); in all, 5 films and 11 TV shows over 19 years. Their title most voted by MovieNCo readers is The Vampire Diaries (2009), with 296 votes. Their busiest decade is the 2010s, with 8 titles. The person they have worked with most is Kevin Hart, on 2 films, among them Borderlands and Think Like a Man Too.