The multi-talented and very beautiful Janina Gavankar (Luna Garza) was recently interviewed by the Screen Actors Guild Foundation’s National Director Zino Macaluso about her True Blood role and social media/technology.
The tech-mogul / actress / musician was classically trained in music before falling in love with acting in high school. In college Gavankar majored in Theater Performance and minored in Music Psychology. She loves to continue using music as a performance medium and was involved in Kanye West’s “Love Lock Down.” Her first paying gig was in a bank commercial for Mellon Bank and from there, her resume is lengthy. Before True Blood, she played a major role in HBO’s The L-Word (starting in the 4th season, like True Blood) as Poppy and in the unfortunately short-lived show, The Gates.
She said the most exciting thing, or the thing she loves the most about True Blood are the amazing writers and table-reads. She gets pumped about the awesome writing. When everyone sits down to read an episode together, she compares the excitement to an audience watching the episode for the first time. She also said that because she’s spent so much time in Shreveport, Louisiana she was able to create a rather lengthy mental back story for her TB character Luna.
Outside of her major work, she’s done a lot of social media work. She has launched a new website for new actors, she maintains a fan page on Facebook and JaninaGavankar.com and is constantly tweeting from @janina. She also claims to have been the first actor on Twitter, joining back in 2006 when “everyone still hated the word tweeting.” Her advice to everyone in the social media world is to “be authentic… The YouTube generation can tell when you’re faking it.” Also, this writer’s personal favorite Internet clip of Gavankar and mentioned in the interview, comes from Funny or Die called “Method Shapeshifting with Marshall Allman.” Check it out, it’s hilarious.
Below is the full interview, so if you want to watch a full hour of her bubbly self, feel free. Let us know what you think in the comments!
Source: SAGFoundation.org
Photo: HBO
