Please Don’t Put Anything On Avantika’s Calendar

Avantika is not a planner. It’s a trait that can probably be attributed to her Aquarius sun and Sagittarius rising — but if you ask her, it was the entertainment industry that made her this way. “No one in Hollywood moves with a plan. It’s so hurry-up-and-wait, and all of a sudden the ball is rolling and it’s moving at an incredulous momentum down the hill,” the actress, 21, tells NYLON over drinks at The Roxy Hotel. “Nothing in my life has ever gone according to the plan, so I don’t bother anymore. Everything is scheduled, at max, a month in advance.”

Her feelings aren’t entirely unwarranted: She’s currently eyeing a Euro summer trip to Sicily and France, but only if she can get clearance from her production schedule. “I’m telling you I’m going to go to Sicily and France, but who the hell knows? I could be in Nicaragua,” Avantika jokes. She’s also studying anthropology at Columbia University but opted to take a temporary leave of absence to focus on work, with no clear time frame on when she’ll return (“Maybe this year. But who’s to say?”), and she definitely can’t commit to a trip to Antarctica with her father in December, either. “[My dad’s] one thing since I was young was like, ‘I never got to take you on these big vacations, and now you’re an adult and you have adult freedom and we can go on these trips.’ I was like, ‘I can’t tell you if I’m going to be free. I just can’t give you that assurance, Dad,’” the Mean Girls actor says.

Avantika’s personal life may not be plannable, but when it comes to her career, she’s playing 4D chess. She currently stars on Mindy Kaling’s new comedy Not Suitable for Work as Abby, a work-centric aspiring stylist living in New York City with her best friend, AJ. While AJ balances three love interests on the show, Abby has removed herself from the dating pool completely, a character choice that has thwarted her dreams of being in a rom-com. So, instead of waiting to see how things shape out in Season 2 (provided the series gets renewed), Avantika is writing a role for herself.

“I sound like a broken record when I say this, but it’s very hard for this industry to picture Brown women in new roles, and when you want to make space for those kinds of parts, sometimes you just kind of have to take the reins into your own hands,” Avantika says. “I love Nora Ephron and anything that centers on a charming, fun, loving female lead, like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days or 10 Things I Hate About You. These are some of my favorite movies of all time, and I’ve always wanted to be in something like them. I think this generation is really lacking their version of an iconic romantic movie, and I wanted to be a part of something like that.”

Considering she has a direct line to one of the most successful screenwriters — and storied rom-com scholars — in Hollywood, you’d think Avantika would’ve reached out to Kaling for advice by now, but that’s not the case. “She’s such a mogul and is so accomplished that I feel like a little Victorian child, arms stretched out, begging for little kernels of advice or information,” she says. “She’s in such a league of her own that I don’t even know how she would approach advising someone as green as I am. But what people don’t know about [Not Suitable for Work] is, our writers’ room is predominantly women, and Mindy really does take a chance on young women, so I would 100% consider going to her for advice. I just am so scared.”

Even if she doesn’t make the call to Kaling, a Deadline announcement is all but imminent. Her European vacation, on the other hand, is another story. “I want to be there, I really do. But the moment you start trying to put it on G-Cal with me, I’m stressed and I walk away. I can’t do logistics,” says Avantika.

Photographs by Jillian Giandurco