Janina Zione Gavankar (; born November 29, 1980) is an American actress and musician. She is trained as a pianist, vocalist, and orchestral percussionist and majored in theatre at the University of Illinois Chicago. Her roles include Eva "Papi" Torres on Showtime's The L Word, Shiva on The League, Leigh Turner on The Gates, Luna Garza on HBO's True Blood, McKenna Hall on The CW's Arrow, Diana Thomas on Fox's Sleepy Hollow, and Qetsiyah/Tessa in The CW's The Vampire Diaries. Gavankar has also played the role of Ms. Dewey, a search engine and virtual assistant for Microsoft.
Early life Gavankar was born in Joliet, Illinois, to Ganesh "Peter" Gavankar, a Marathi engineer from Mumbai, India, who first travelled to the U.S. to pursue a master's degree, and Shan Demohra "Mohra" Gavankar, of half-Marathi and half-Dutch descent from Pune, also in India.
Career
Gavankar has acted in theatre, film, television, and online. Her most notable roles include Iden Versio, a canon Star Wars character and the protagonist of Star Wars: Battlefront II; shapeshifter Luna Garza in True Blood, Papi in The L Word; Ms. Dewey, the personification of a Microsoft live search engine; and Shiva, the namesake of the sought after trophy on The League. She regularly appears in Funny or Die shorts.
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 role in the CW pilot, Dash 4 Cash. In 2008, Gavankar appeared in the TV series Stargate Atlantis, Grey's Anatomy, 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 films, Men, Interrupted, Indian Gangster, and Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey. Gavankar provided the voice of Nikki in Quantum Quest. She landed another lead role in The Gates, since cancelled, on ABC. She appears on CW's Arrow as a vice squad police officer and brief girlfriend to Oliver Queen.
Gavankar is a gamer 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.
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.
Her indie film, Satellite of Love, premiered at the Dallas International Film Festival in 2012, and her 2012 indie I'm Afraid of Virginia Wolf is currently in post-production. 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.
On August 3, 2013, Gavankar landed a role as a witch named Qetsiyah in the fifth season of The Vampire Diaries. She guest starred in the third season of Husbands.
In 2014, she starred as Amita in the video game, Far Cry 4. She also played Detective Meredith Bose on The Mysteries of Laura from 2014 to 2016.
She starred as Iden Versio, the main character in the campaign mode of the 2017 Electronic Arts video game, Star Wars Battlefront II.
In 2018, she appeared in two films. Blindspotting premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and The Vanishing of Sidney Hall was distributed by A24.
In late 2019, Gavankar joined Apple TV's The Morning Show, as Alison Namazi, 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.
Music Gavankar returned to music with a cover of Kanye West's "Love Lockdown". Gavankar's former all-female singing group, Endera, was signed to Cash Money Records Universal Records.
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", in the music video by San Francisco-based band Recliner for their single "Float Away", as well as the music video for Manu Narayan's band Darunam.
In August 2012, she released the single for her upcoming EP, entitled Waiting for Godot, and in November, Billboard premiered the official music video. It went on to win numerous film festival awards.
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.
On May 20, 2015, Gavankar performed a percussion duet at Carnegie Hall with Questlove for the Best Buddies charity benefit.
Technology Gavankar was the first actress to use Twitter, signing up on Richard Branson's computer on Necker Island in 2006.Janina Gavankar Cements Geek Cred on Attack of the Show! , trueblood-news.com. Retrieved January 9, 2016.
Gavankar was the personification of Microsoft's interactive search engine Ms. Dewey.
In 2011, she created a free template for actors and artists to help them control their online presence 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.
In 2017, she launched a private discussion forum for members of the games industry.
In 2018, she produced the first narrative film to use the Arri Alexa LF.
Gavankar is a first-round investor in ClassPass.
Awards In 2008, Gavankar was nominated for an Asian Excellence Award. In 2012, Gavankar received the Gravity Summit Award for Excellence in Social Media.
Filmography Film Year Title Role Notes 2000 Forward Anticipation in Chicago Corrin Short film 2001 Why Is God... Mina Short film 2002 Barbershop Fine Woman 2003 Dark Kaya 2004 Barbershop 2: Back in Business Field Reporter2005 Just Speak Melody Short film Cup of My Blood Iona 2008 Shattered! Maria 2009 Indian Gangster Geeta Short film2010 Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey Niki Voice Men, Interrupted Cece Twain Short film2011 Ms. Rime Victory or Death Selah Short film 2012 Satellite of Love Michelle2013 Who's Afraid of Vagina Wolf? Katia Amour / The Stud Detective HostetlerShort film2014 Code Academy Madame Counselor Think Like a Man Too Vanessa 2016 Pee-wee's Big Holiday Party Guest 2017 The Vanishing of Sidney Hall Gina2018 Blindspotting Val The White Orchid Tina 2019 Stucco J Short filmAlso director, writer and producer 2020 The Way Back Angela 2021 Encounter Piya 2024 Borderlands Knoxx 2026 Best of the Best Rekha
Television Year Title Role Notes 2004 Strong Medicine Nurse Juni Episode: "Omissions" 2007–2009 Eva "Papi" Torres 12 episodes2008 My Boys Terri Episode: "The Transitioning" Stargate Atlantis Sergeant "Dusty" Mehra Episode: "Whispers" Grey's Anatomy Intern Lisa 2 episodes2009 NCIS Angela Lopez Episode: "Caged" Dollhouse Lynn Episode: "Epitaph One" Usha Patel 2 episodes Three Rivers Ada Rahimi Episode: "Place of Life" 2009–2015 Shiva 10 episodes 2010 Leigh Turner 13 episodes 2011 Traffic Light Alexa 3 episodes 2011–2013 True Blood Luna Garza 25 episodes2012 Kerry Episode: "My Dinner with Phil" Choke.Kick.Girl: The Series Katie Episode: "Hammerfist, Knee, Guillotine Fiend"2013 Love Is Dead Marisol Rajagopal Television film Arrow Detective McKenna Hall 4 episodes Hannah Episode: "The Birds of Granby" Just Face It Ava Miniseries Husbands Kajal Episode: "I Dream of Cleaning" Qetsiyah / Tessa 4 episodes2014 Nikki & Nora: The N&N Files Lea Sadina 4 episodes Garfunkel and Oates Dr. Sharma Episode: "Third Member" 2014–2016 Meredith Bose 38 episodes 2015 Sabrina Television film 2017 Sleepy Hollow Diana Thomas 13 episodes 2018 Hell's Kitchen Herself (guest) Episode: "Stars Heating Up Hell"2019 Relics and Rarities Mumeé 2 episodes You're The Worst Rachel Episode: "Zero Eggplants" Better Things Nikki 2 episodes 2019–2021 The Morning Show Alison Namazi 15 episodes 2020 Space Force Hannah Howard Episode: "Edison Jaymes" 2020–2022 The Mighty Ones Kensington Voice, 29 episodes 2021 Santa Inc. Lakshmi (voice) Episode: "The Announcement" 2021–2022 Big Sky Ren Bhullar 18 episodes2022 The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window Meredith 2 episodes Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi Pav-ti Voice, episode: "Life and Death" 2023 Never Have I Ever Akshara Episodes: "...wrecked my future" and "...gone to prom"
Video games Year Title Role Notes 2014 Far Cry 4 Amita 2017 Horizon Zero Dawn Tatai Also The Frozen Wilds DLC Star Wars Battlefront II Iden Versio Voice and motion capture 2019 Afterparty Lola 2022 God of War Ragnarök Sinmara Largely cut from the game's storyline; present in files 2023 Forspoken Tanta Sila Voice and motion capture2023 Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical Freddie Alan Wake II Agent Kiran Estevez Also 'The Lake House' DLC 2027 Until Dawn 2 Anna Baas
Audiobooks Year Title Role Notes 2017 Star Wars Battlefront II: Inferno SquadNarrator 2019 Randomize: Forward Short story
Crew work Year Title Role Notes 2020 The Mandalorian Assistant Puppeteer UncreditedEpisode: "Chapter 11: The Heiress"
References
External links
Janina Gavankar profile, Lesbicanarias.es (in Spanish) Interview, Rediff.com (September 7, 2007) Interview, forbes.com (November 2012)