{"id":344342,"date":"2026-03-17T20:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T20:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/344342\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T20:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T20:14:09","slug":"how-actor-avantika-spent-her-first-visit-to-austin-for-sxsw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/344342\/","title":{"rendered":"How Actor Avantika Spent Her First Visit to Austin for SXSW"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Every year, the South by Southwest Film &amp; TV Festival (SXSW) gathers an exciting crowd of actors and filmmakers in Austin, Texas. This weekend, actor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vogue.com\/article\/avantika-stylish-diwali-party-new-york\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Avantika<\/a> (who you may know <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vogue.com\/article\/avantika-vandanapu-mean-girls-red-carpet-star\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">from Mean Girls<\/a>) was among them, promoting her new film, Pretty Lethal, a ballet-themed action film co-starring Uma Thurman, Maddie Ziegler, and Iris Apatow.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is my first film at a festival, ever,\u201d Avantika tells Vogue, \u201cand for any movie-lover, it\u2019s nothing short of a dream to be in an environment like SXSW\u2014let alone have a release here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While in town, Avantika made a point of exploring her surroundings. \u201cThere were a plethora of opportunities and excursions,\u201d she says. \u201cI had so many friends who had movies coming out here, as well\u2014my co-star\u00a0from my upcoming show NSWF, Jack Martin, and my best friend Joshua Colley. Friends, films, good food: What\u2019s not to be thrilled about?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Image may contain Adult Person Accessories Clothing Dress Face Head Photography Portrait Skin and Tattoo\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"ResponsiveImageContainer-dkeESL cQPiWi responsive-image__image\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/SXSW2.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Getting corseted in the elevator by my hairstylist, Davey! Wearing Wiederhoeft.<\/p>\n<p>Photo: Anna Koblish<\/p>\n<p>The star\u2019s fun-filled SXSW began with a kitschy car ride from the airport. \u201cUpon arriving, I took a karaoke cab, which was incredible,\u201d Avantika says. \u201cGranted, I don\u2019t know how the residents felt about me terrorizing the streets of Austin with an incredibly\u00a0off-key rendition of \u2018Valerie,\u2019 but I had a blast!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>From there, it was straight into work mode. Avantika attended a press day for Pretty Lethal in a black and white Wiederhoeft dress, sitting for interviews with her co-stars Thurman, Ziegler, Apatow, Millicent Simmonds, and Lana Condor. \u201cPretty Lethal is best described as a bloody ballet action thriller featuring the most badass cast of women,\u201d says Avantika. \u201cThe idea of the Hungarian mafia hunting down a group of feisty ballerinas was such a fun world to play in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The star adds that venturing into the action genre was a whole new experience for her. \u201cDon\u2019t get me wrong, it was definitely a challenge\u2014but none of us girls are scared of a little blood, sweat, and tears,\u201d she says. \u201cI was in ballet bootcamp during the day and frolicking around Budapest in the night with my girls.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every year, the South by Southwest Film &amp; TV Festival (SXSW) gathers an exciting crowd of actors and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46,10201,5101],"class_list":["post-344342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-storytypenews-trending","tag-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}