Janina Gavankar

Janina Gavankar played a lesbian character in the series ‘The L Word’ due to which there were speculations that the actress is lesbian. However, she dismissed the rumors and stated that she is a straight lady who is romantically interested only in men.

Janina Gavankar was born as Janina Zione Gavankar on November 29, 1980 in Joliet, Illinois, USA. Her father Peter Ganesh was an engineer from Pune, Maharashtra. Her mother, Mohra Gavankar is half-Dutch and half-Indian. She has a sister named Sonya Gavankar who is a world famous journalist as well as the former Miss District of Columbia (1997).

She is a grandniece of documentary editor Sadanand Desai and sound recordist Mangesh Desai, and great grandniece of music composer/director Vasant Desai.

Janina Gavankar started her acting career in 2001. She first appeared in ‘Why Is God’ followed by MGM’s ‘Barbershop’.

In 2006, she joined the cast of ‘Ms. Dewey’. A year later, she was offered the TV series ‘The L Word’ where she portrayed the character of Papi.

After this, she appeared in a number of television shows till 2009. The actress did ‘Shattered’, ‘Factory’, ‘My Boys’, ‘Stargate Atlantis’, ‘Grey's Anatomy’ and ‘NCIS’.

Then Gavankar got featured in the series ‘Dollhouse’, ‘The Cleaner’, ‘Three Rivers’ and ‘The League’ in 2009. She also provided her voice to the character of Nikki in the animated flick ‘Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey’ and did the independent movie ‘Indian Gangster’ that year.

Soon after this, she was cast as Shivakamini Somakandarkram for the television series ‘The League’ which ran from 2009–15.

Janina Gavankar contributed to the cover of Kanye West's track ‘Love Lockdown’. Besides this, she has played marimba and provided vocals for many film scores. She also got featured in the music videos of Ella Leya and San Francisco-based music group Recliner.

In 2011, she developed a free template for Hollywood people to help them control their presence on social media.

In 2012, Janina Gavankar lent her voice to various characters of the web series ‘Do's and Don't’. She also acted in the web series ‘The Q Side’ and ‘Squad 85’ that year. During that time, she released the single for her EP titled ‘Waiting for Godot’ as well.

In 2015, she lent her voice to ‘FERO’, one of the lead characters in ‘Halo 5: Guardians’ promo event –‘Hunt the Truth’. The same year, she also performed percussion duet at the Carnegie Hall for ‘Best Buddies’ charity benefit. Her music video ‘Don't Look Down-#JustAddDrumCorps Edition’ was also released during same year.