Janina Gavankar Biography

Janina Zione Gavankar (born November 29, 1980) is an American actress known for her role as the voice of FERO, one of main protagonists in the Halo 5: Guardians promotional event, Hunt The Truth. Gavankar is also trained as a pianist, vocalist, and orchestral percussionist. She majored in Theatre Performance at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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 Meredith Bose on NBC's The Mysteries of Laura.

Personal life

Gavankar was born in Joliet, Illinois to Peter Ganesh ("Pete") and Mohra Gavankar. Her father, who was born in 1938 and died in 2012, was an Indian engineer from Pune, Maharashtra, 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.

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, as a shapeshifter, Luna Garza, on HBO's True Blood. 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 in CW pilot Dash 4 Cash. 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 Gates, since cancelled, on ABC. She appears on CW's Arrow as a former flame to Oliver Queen.

Gavankar is an admitted 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 movie, 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 the now cancelled Attack of the Show! which aired on G4 TV.

On August 3, 2013, Gavankar landed a role as a witch named Tessa 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.

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 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", 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 actor to use Twitter, signing up on Richard Branson's computer on Necker Island in 2006.

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.

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

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2001	Why Is God	Mina
2002	Barbershop	Fine Woman	MGM
2003	Dark	Kaya
2004	Barbershop 2: Back in Business	Field Reporter	Sequel
2005	Cup of My Blood	Iona
2006	BBQ Bill	The Fiance
	Ms. Dewey	Ms. Dewey
2007	Dash 4 Cash	Melanie	TV series
	Epileptic Gaming	Herself
2007-2009	The L Word	Papi	TV series
2008	Shattered!	Maria
	Factory	Laura	TV series
	My Boys	Terri	TV series
	Stargate Atlantis	Sgt. "Dusty" Mehra	TV series
	Grey's Anatomy	Lisa	TV series
2008-2009	NCIS	Angela	TV series
2009	Dollhouse	Lynn	TV series
	The Cleaner	Usha	TV series
	Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey	Nikki (voice)	Animated movie
	Men, Interrupted	Cece Smith	Independent movie
	Three Rivers	Ada	TV series
	Indian Gangster	Geeta	Independent movie
2009-2015	The League	Shivakamini Somakandarkram	TV series
2010	6 Month Rule	Reese	Independent movie
	The Gates	Leigh	TV series
2011	The Custom Mary	Ms. Rime	Independent movie
	Traffic Light	Alexa	TV series
	The Exes	Kerry	TV series
	Method Shapeshifting	Herself	Funny or Die short
	Herpacol DX	Actress	Funny or Die short
	God Reschedules Rapture	Blogger	Funny or Die short
	Touring	Actress	Funny or Die short
	Victory or Death	Selah	Independent movie
	Attack of the Show!	Herself	TV series
	Satellite of Love	Michelle	Independent movie
2011-2013	True Blood	Luna	TV series
2012	I Am Afraid of Virginia Wolf	Katia	Independent movie
	The Tournament Challenge Challenged	Herself	Funny or Die short
	Do's and Don't	Various Characters (Voice)	Web series
	Attack of the Show!	Herself	TV series
	X-Play	Herself	TV series
	The Q Side	Herself	Web series
	Squad 85	Cameo	Web series
2012-13	Arrow	Mckenna Hall	TV series
2013	The Vampire Diaries	Qetsiyah/Tessa	TV series
	The Goodwin Games	Hannah	TV series
	Bizarre Bracket Behaviour	Actress	Funny or Die short
	Just Face It	Ava	Web series
	The N&N Files	Leah Sardina	Web series
	Husbands	Kajal	Web series
2014	Think Like a Man Too	Vanessa
	Garfunkel and Oates	Dr. Sharma	TV series
	Far Cry 4	Amita	Video game (voice and motion capture)
2014-2016	The Mysteries of Laura	Meredith Bose	TV series
2015	HUNT the TRUTH	FERO/ONI Agent Maya Sankar	Video game marketing campaign (voice)
2017	Sleepy Hollow	Diana	TV series
2017	Sidney Hall	Gina