'I tried to be as Bollywood-ish as I could'
Janina has also had a brief brush with Bollywood. Though the movie was never released, she played a heroine in a film titled Naam Mera Maria, which starred Samrat Mukherjee (actor Kajol's cousin) as the male lead. "It was quite a challenge; I was speaking Hindi even though I didn't understand a word of it. But I tried to be as Bollywood-ish as I could. Before I began shooting for it in India, I watched Hindi channels and tried to practice alternating between the shy and flirty look," she laughs.
Currently, she also enjoys doing some theater with an LA-based sketch comedy group called OPM. "It's an Asian themed comedy and stands for Open People's Minds. Since we are all working actors, we try to do shows when we can."
In the virtual world too, this stunning lass has managed to make a mark for herself, playing the saucy and sexy librarian, Ms Dewey
, on Microsoft's interactive search engine that was launched last year. Type in a search query, and you can expect Ms Dewey to retort (out of nearly 600 recorded responses) in her typical tongue-in-cheek, sassy style. "It was a fun experience. I am very passionate about new media and how it is going to develop. So it's been exciting to be part of a project that's different," says Janina, who confesses to having a geek streak in her and says she's not really 'cool' as a person. "I would probably be crashing into people if I owned a Blackberry," she says.
Did her ethnic background make it more difficult for her to break in to the entertainment scene in LA? "Of course, it's more difficult for South Asians, but I never let any of that take up any space in my mind. I think that's such a defeatist attitude; when you start thinking that way, you've already lost," she replies. "We have fewer auditions than everyone else, so there is less opportunity. But it's changing, very slowly."
She recalls when she first saw a billboard of the television series Heroes, before it premiered and how she was really excited to spot a brown guy on the extreme left. "I met him (Sendhil Ramamurthy) at a party and don't know if I scared him because I walked up to him and screamed, 'I'm so excited about you! You're brown and you're working on such a great show!' But it means a lot to me. Every single time I see that token brown kid, I'm very excited," she says.
Though she has yet to play an Indian character, Gavankar is open to it. "I would play what anyone wants me to, but people expect Indians to look a certain type and I don't think I fit that. What I really want is to continue to play a very wide range of characters and be a working woman until I'm 65!"
She's off to a good start.
Also read: Spotted! Readers & Stars
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