EXCLUSIVE: When Mean Girls star Avantika Vandanapu admitted being a fan of Mahesh Babu: “He has a very down-to-earth and grounded nature about him”

Avantika Vandanapu, an emerging American-Indian actress, has captivated audiences in her portrayal of Karen Shetty in the latest Mean Girls installment, succeeding Amanda Seyfried's iconic role from 2004. The internet has been buzzing with praise, envisioning her as the brown Rapunzel and advocating for her presence in various projects. Prior to her Hollywood journey, Vandanapu marked her debut in the Indian film industry with a role in Mahesh Babu's 2016 release, Brahmotsavam.

 

EXCLUSIVE: When Mean Girls star Avantika Vandanapu admitted being a fan of Mahesh Babu: “He has a very down-to-earth and grounded nature about him”

 

While the 19-year-old is revelling in the newfound fame in Hollywood, she made her Telugu movie debut as a child actor and worked with Telugu superstar Mahesh Babu. Back in 2021, while promoting her film Spin for Disney channel which also stars Abhay Deol, Avantika admitted to being a huge fan of Mahesh Babu. Speaking to Bollywood Hungama at the time, she had said, “I am a big fan of him. If you watch Telugu movies, you are mostly like and inevitably going to be a fan of Mahesh Babu. So to have the first movie and to have worked with him was such an insane thing for me. I don’t know if many Indians in American, second-generation Indian-American kids can comprehend Mahesh Babu’s magnitude and the amount of work he has done. I grew up watching so many Telugu movies. My parents speak fluent Telugu at home. I was very ingrained in that culture. So when I went to India and worked with Mahesh Babu, I knew what was happening and it was a huge thing for me. To this day, I am still like ‘That’s so weird that it was my first opportunity.’ How insane is that.”

 

Recalling Mahesh Babu’s kind gesture of guiding her during the shoot, she added, “I did get to speak with him on set. He is an adult and he decided to speak to his young kid who was a really big fan on set. He is so nice. During the shoot, a lot of things got added and we travelled to Ooty and a lot of unplanned travels happened. When we were there, he was kind of helping me, guiding me through the process because all this was happening so fast at once. He is a great actor and amazing to be in person. He is very quiet and he has a very down-to-earth and grounded nature about him.”

 

Brahmotsavam stars Mahesh Babu, Kajal Aggarwal, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, and Pranitha Subhash in lead roles.

 

Meanwhile, Avantika Vandanapu stars in Tina Fey’s Mean Girls. New student Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) is welcomed into the top of the social food chain by the elite group of popular girls called “The Plastics,” ruled by the conniving queen bee Regina George (Reneé Rapp) and her minions Gretchen (Bebe Wood) and Karen (Avantika). However, when Cady makes the major misstep of falling for Regina’s ex-boyfriend Aaron Samuels (Christopher Briney), she finds herself prey in Regina’s crosshairs. As Cady sets to take down the group’s apex predator with the help of her outcast friends Janis (Auli’i Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey), she must learn how to stay true to herself while navigating the most cutthroat jungle of all: high school. The film is currently running in theatres.

 

 

ALSO READ: Shah Rukh Khan shows excitement for Mahesh Babu starrer Guntur Kaaram: “Massss!!! Highly inflammable”

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