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Avantika’s face card literally never declines.” I am reminded of something I had recently seen a fan say about the 19-year-old actor on X (the platform previously known as Twitter) as she pops up on my Zoom screen late one afternoon. Avantika Vandanapu is dressed casually in a soft grey graphic T-shirt, her long curls cascading over her shoulders. A few face-framing strands are pinned back to reveal her arresting features.
That Vandanapu is a classic beauty is evident even through the pixelated Zoom video transmission. Impossibly long lashes fringe her large doe eyes, which crinkle adorably each time she laughs. Her naturally full lips and heart-shaped face give her an almost cherubic aura. I think to myself that she looks like an Instagram face filter come to life.
“I actually just took a temporary leave of absence from university,” she shares, when I ask what’s new. Giggling, she adds: “I hired this guy off Craigslist—he was so nice—to come move all my stuff out of my dorm room at 6 o’clock in the morning. I am now living with my friend’s grandmother—random I know—in New York and I love it.”
As an undergrad at Columbia University, Vandanapu is serious about getting an education. “I definitely want to go back to Columbia next semester. In the meantime, I’m about to enrol in community college since it has an educational system that’s more flexible and that fits with my present schedule.
Vandanapu entered the film industry at the age of 10. Given how many entertainers who start their careers young end up deprioritising and eventually missing out on further education, her outlook is refreshing. She attributes it partly to the way her parents, whom she affectionately describes as semi-liberal—“I had a crazy curfew growing up, but they also understood that societal standards of what it means to be a teenager now are very different from what they were used to”—have raised her.
“If I were to reprise a character that had been done so well before, I needed to commit to it fully and not cut any corners.”
“My mum’s philosophy was: you can do anything you want in the world as long as you commit to it fully and are the best at it,” Vandanapu laughs. When she told her parents that she wanted to be an actor, her mother decided to leave her career in the US behind and move to India with Vandanapu to help her get a start. “She also ensured that my academics were not compromised along the way. Most immigrant parents would not have been open to the idea of their child entering this industry, but mine were determined to find a happy medium.”
Vandanapu estimates that she acted in around 10 Indian movies between the ages of 10 and 14 before she found a reason to return to Los Angeles. “We saw a post in a Facebook group that a new Disney movie was looking for an Indian lead. That was a wild idea for me at the time.”
One successful cold call and audition tape later—“They were like, we need to work on this girl, but she has something for sure,”—Vandanapu had booked the lead role of Rhea Kumar in the Disney Channel Original Movie Spin, marking the start of a new chapter of her career in Hollywood.
Did she expect that her move would eventually see her stepping into the role of an iconic character from one of the most popular original films in modern cinema? Her eyes widen and she shakes her head vehemently. “I was so sure that I wasn’t going to get to play Karen. When I found out that I got the part, I didn’t cry. I wasn’t happy. I just had no emotion because it didn’t feel real.”
As a fresh take on Karen in the 2024 film adaptation of the Broadway musical based on the 2004 film Mean Girls (yes, there are layers here), Vandanapu delivers a standout performance, earning her praise from every critic who reviewed the film and rendering her a bona fide breakout star. But sitting among thousands of enraptured viewers were two astounded parents who had to grapple with their daughter’s burgeoning young adulthood, splashed up on the silver screen for everyone to see.
“It’s a shock for any brown parent to watch their kid on screen doing a number like ‘Sexy’”
“Mean Girls was definitely a hump in our family dynamic because I’m shown in a little bit of an older light in the film,” Vandanapu contemplates. “It’s a shock for any brown parent to watch their kid on screen doing a number like ‘Sexy’. We had many conversations and I explained to them that if I were to reprise a character that had been done so well before, I needed to commit to it fully and not cut any corners. And they understood that telling your kid to be ambitious, but only within certain bounds, is not a realistic expectation to have.”
Vandanapu articulates her thoughts with startling clarity and speaks with a wisdom far beyond her years. Her parents have been extraordinarily supportive throughout her career—she tells me a hilarious story about her mother fearlessly knocking down a powerful producer’s door at three o’clock in the morning to ensure Vandanapu would not get short-changed in her contract—but it is her own laser focus on her craft, her killer work ethic and a rare, undefinable X factor that has gotten her this far.
As at March, she has a number of exciting projects in the pipeline. Big Girls Don’t Cry, a Hindi-language coming-of-age boarding school drama on Prime Video, and horror movie Tarot will be the first to release, showcasing different facets of her gifts as an actor. The breadth of work and diversity of roles she is racking up in her portfolio makes it difficult to pigeonhole or typecast her, and Vandanapu revels in this fact.
“You know the phrase ‘jack-of-all-trades, master of none’? I learnt recently that the full saying is ‘A jack-of-all-trades is a master of none, but oftentimes is better than a master of one’. It sums up the path I’m on. I’ve done Disney, I’ve done a musical, I’ve done horror. I’m excited to see the industry’s response to me as an actor who is able to do multiple genres,” she says.
Keen to also try her hand at producing and writing, Vandanapu shares that she has added honing those two skills to her expanding list of things to do in 2024. “Clearly, I believe there’s room for it all,” she says with a cheeky grin. “And succeeding in one gives me hope that I might succeed in another.”
For now, she is spending two blissful weeks in Hyderabad, where her extended family lives. “Pre-pandemic, I used to visit my family every year and spend my summer vacation in Hyderabad. Since I’ve started working more, it’s not realistic to set that time aside consistently. But whenever I’m in India for a shoot or a film, I try my best to see my family.”
She apologises for the background noise outside her window—“You know what the traffic here can be like, right?”—as we talk about the restorative joys of being back in the homeland. “I never do anything productive in Hyderabad and that’s the best part. I eat mangoes, nap a lot with the fan on and just chill out.” It’s a hard-earned break before the starlet dives back into work; I couldn’t wish her anything better myself.
Photography Anna Koblish
Make-up Robert Bryant
Hair Davey Matthews
Dress Cucculleli Shaheen
Pre-order your copy of the April ‘Pop’ issue of Vogue Singapore online or pick it up on newsstands from 5 April 2024.
