Big Sky's Janina Gavankar Relishes the Chance to Do 'Something Unexpected' with the Show's South Asian Crime Family

When Big Sky showrunner Elwood Reid first approached Janina Gavankar last year about a main role in the sophomore season of the hit ABC crime drama series, the Indian-American actress immediately recognized the opportunity to play a character that could broaden the representation of South Asian communities on network television.

"He said, 'I know you're gonna ask me about this character, but the truth is, I don't really know. I like to write for actors that I hire. All I know is I think she comes from a crime family,'" Gavankar recalled in a recent interview with TV Guide. "And I immediately saw the potential of this family, and the first thing I did was say, 'So I'm South Asian. Are you ready to hire a bunch of brown people to play my crime family?'"

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Reid, along with the rest of the writers and producers, was ready to rise to the challenge. So after they ended their Zoom meeting, Gavankar, who initially expected pushback from network executives, proceeded to write a long email with research that detailed the existence of Indo-Canadian crime families in British Columbia. Due to the existence of the model minority myth in the Western world, Gavankar said, Asian actors—let alone South Asian actors—have seldom been able to play multi-faceted characters that are "complicated and messy in the same way that all humans are" on American television.

"It was suddenly a moment where I saw the possibility of having history be made and that this show is going to allow us to play terrible, terrible people," Gavankar quipped. "It's just one of those things [where] you know the stories that haven't been told within your own community."

Gavankar plays Ren Bhullar, who arrives in Helena in search of answers after a simple business transaction results in a messy car wreck involving one of her family's employees. Hellbent on retrieving her drugs and money and not afraid to make her presence known in town, Ren's personal mission expands when she sees an opportunity to forge her own personal and professional path—away from the stifling pressures of her own family. "She sees Montana as an opportunity to have a bigger role in her family overall and to impress her father, who is the head of this cartel," said Sharon Lee Watson, a writer and co-executive producer of Big Sky.

Growing up in a patriarchal South Asian family, Ren has customarily been overlooked by her father Veer (Bernard White) in favor of her younger brother Jag (Vinny Chhibber), even though she is more capable and more intelligent than her brother. As someone who is always one step ahead of everyone else, Ren believed she would be able to run her own independent operation. But she was dismayed when the rest of her family—and her father's girlfriend Alicia (Constance Zimmer)—arrived without warning in Helena, leading to a contentious dinner scene that illustrates the uncomfortable dysfunction and internal politics of the Bhullar family.

"Because of the cultural tradition that her brother is more respected and more revered and is expected to take the mantle of the family just by virtue of being a male, I think that's a trend that she is bucking against," Watson said. "In the dinner scene, some of the tensions that come up have been built up over the years. This is not just about what's happened in the recent days, but it's coming from an emotion that's been built up over much of her life."

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The second her father gets off the plane in Montana, Ren is not in control anymore, Gavankar said, and Veer's presence has reignited the sibling rivalry between Ren and Jag. "We said it pretty explicitly in another scene when Ren says [to Jag], 'You know what's sad? I'm smarter than you.' She knows there's a glass ceiling, but she's the smartest person in the room, and I have never experienced more personal texts or tweets about one line in something I've done. Women from all over just felt that one, because it is universal."

In the context of her family and the elusive nature of Big Sky's antagonists, Ren is not a cut-and-dry, classic villain, Watson said. "I think she's such a complicated character, but she really hasn't done anything that's more devious or twisted or dangerous than anybody else in her family. If you take the entire group as a whole, yes, but in some ways, you can't totally blame her or single her out for her role in this town."

After she was cast, Gavankar said she did not hesitate to pitch the writers and producers culturally specific ideas and names for the Bhullar family—and much to her surprise, they listened. Once Chhibber joined the show, Reid brought him and Gavankar into the writers' room to talk about their deeply personal experiences as the children of immigrants, which Gavankar felt were pretty "universal themes," and the writers immediately infused those details into the story in real-time.

Even the props, such as the produce that can be found at Indian food stores, have been carefully researched and considered. "Just asking about the minutiae of the things that we have in our beautiful culture, it is so felt," Gavankar said. "Because it takes a little extra work, people shy away from having to do it. And what they don't realize is that, yes, it takes extra work from the actors as well, but we are so excited to do the work, so 80 percent can come from us if [the people in positions of power] will allow it."

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Having worked in film and television for the better part of the last two decades, Gavankar, who is Desi, understands "what a gift" it is to be working with a creative team that understands the importance of honoring cultural specificities because it ultimately benefits all marginalized communities in the long run. "We're so early in the conversation and history of representation and evening the scales that it's just another example of how many stories there are for not just South Asians, but for all of us," she said.

"I think any and all representation is important, and it's important to be able to see characters exist in all different kinds of roles instead of just the stereotypical roles that we've seen them in before," Watson added. "So for me, that's why this Bhullar family is so exciting and such a joy to write for, because I think it is culturally specific. I hope it's exciting for the audience to see something unexpected."

Following Veer's unexpected arrival, the family's crime syndicate has officially moved into Montana, which will pose a big threat to Jenny Hoyt (Katheryn Winnick) and the sheriff's office and lead to even more double—and triple—alliances. Or, as Gavankar so eloquently put it, "Things are going to get so much worse; the proverbial shit is about to hit the House of Bhullar fan."

And while the Bhullars might believe that Montana will be an easy town to take over, they will be surprised by the tenacity of the authorities "and the fight that they put up against this family, especially when a local townsperson loses their son to an overdose because of the Bhullar drugs," Watson previewed. "That's gonna make things hit home a lot harder, and it's gonna make Jenny and the sheriff's office really want to push this crime family out."

"I think we're also gonna be playing out these internal family dynamics in terms of the South Asian family having complex dynamics that we haven't seen before. [But] I think we'll see it here," Watson added. "I think we'll see typical—and atypical—paternal, father-daughter relationship dynamics and complications that don't necessarily have to do with being South Asian, but some of them are culturally specific too. So I hope that we're showing the entire range of family dynamics that could come out, that are exciting and different."

Big Sky airs Thursdays at 10/9c on ABC.