I was already a big believer that Janina Gavankar is a wildly talented individual that this industry needs more of, but after our 50-minute Collider Ladies Night chat, I’ve also come to the conclusion that she can (and should) do just about anything.
At the moment, Gavankar is making the most of a downright delicious role in Big Sky Season 2. The search for Ronald Pergman (Brian Geraghty) is still ongoing, but Jenny (Katheryn Winnick) and Cassie (Kylie Bunbury) also get caught up in a case that involves some missing drugs and a whole lot of money. That’s where Gavankar’s Ren comes in. She’s part of the crime family tied to the drugs and money, and is sent to Helena to investigate.
With Big Sky celebrating its winter finale, Gavankar took some time to join us for an extended Collider Ladies Night conversation — but it still wasn’t enough! She’s a creator with an especially high drive and wide range of passions, making it impossible to cover it all in one episode. Not only is Gavankar part of quite a few pop culture phenomena including Star Wars, True Blood and Arrow, but she’s also a passionate gamer, a trained musician and someone with a whole slew of stories involving unforgettable collaborations that turned into lasting friendships, beginning with her very first feature film, Barbershop:
“When you’re in Chicago or any second market, as they’re called, you just kind of are at the mercy of whatever comes to town and Barbershop was a really big moment for us in Chicago. It was a pretty big deal. And we were all the locals who got to say precisely one line or, in my case, two words. But the really wonderful thing about that was that I met Michael Ealy. The two words that I said, ‘Hi Ricky,’ I said to Michael and we became friends, and that was 20 years ago almost … He was the only person I knew when I moved to LA. He picked me up from the airport. It’s like the most wonderful thing. His wife is one of my best friends. You just think, ‘Wow! It’s such a big career moment! I get to be in a real movie,’ and you don’t realize that you’re gonna meet someone that you might potentially know forever.”
Other creators Gavankar stayed connected with, even years after their project wrapped up? True Blood’s Deborah Ann Woll and Kristin Bauer.
“Deborah Ann Woll is my dungeon master and I’m still friends with so many of the cast. And I started a podcast production company and our first podcast is Truest Blood, which we’re making for HBO and Deborah and Kristin Bauer who played Pam are the hosts.”
What’s the key to creating such strong, long-lasting connections in film and television? Gavankar’s mentality is that, “If you are lucky enough to sustain a career and you’re just a nice person, you’ll end up working with a lot of the same people again.”
As for her Big Sky collaborators, if you’re caught up on the show, you’re probably well aware Gavankar and Ryan O’Nan are making the absolute most of their characters and their chemistry with one another. As Gavankar explained, the two have absolutely no problem testing the limits when playing around with the material they’re given.
“Anytime you see Ryan O’Nan who plays Donno, he is also a writer/producer on the show, so he and I are changing a lot often. You never really know how much you’re gonna get away with, but the first thing that we shot together was this thing in the car. My first episode is the second episode, Tonya’s in the back, there’s no lines in the scene and I look at him and I just motion to my seatbelt like, ‘Put you’re seatbelt on,’ and he said, ‘It’s itchy on my neck.’ And they kept it in the episode! I was like, ‘Ya’ll, if you’re just gonna let us say things and you’re gonna keep it in the episode, we’re just gonna do that forever!’”
that right there is just one of the examples Gavankar shared of playing around and taking swings on the set of Big Sky that paid off especially well. You can hear more about that, Gavankar’s experience working on The L Word, Star Wars Battlefront II, Borderlands and so much more by watching her episode of Collider Ladies Night at the top of this article or by listening to our uncut conversation in podcast form below: