{"id":474008,"date":"2026-06-03T11:35:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T11:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/474008\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T11:35:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T11:35:15","slug":"meet-avantika-vandanapu-who-plays-abby-in-mindy-kalings-new-series-not-suitable-for-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/474008\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Avantika Vandanapu, who plays Abby in Mindy Kaling\u2019s new series Not Suitable for Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

At 21, Avantika Vandanapu \u2013 known mononymously as Avantika \u2013 is already one of Hollywood\u2019s most watchable rising stars. The actress has a new Hulu series out called Not Suitable for Work, which is already making waves.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Avantika starred in director Vicky Jewson\u2019s ballet-fu action thriller film Pretty Lethal, which landed on Amazon Prime Video in March.<\/p>\n

Created by Mindy Kaling<\/a>, NSFW follows young professionals navigating matters of the heart while chasing their dreams in Manhattan. It also stars Ella Hunt, Jack Martin, Will Angus, Jay Ellis, Ego Nwodim and Constance Wu<\/a>, and premiered on Hulu on June 2.<\/p>\n

Avantika, who plays budding stylist Abhinaya \u201cAbby\u201d Chilukuri, revealed to Entertainment Tonight that she hasn\u2019t seen the full show yet as she doesn\u2019t enjoy watching her own performances, but said she is thrilled for fans to see it.<\/p>\n

So what do we know about the young actress?<\/p>\n

Avantika is proud of her Indian heritage\"AvantikaAvantika Vandanapu at the season one premiere of Hulu\u2019s Not Suitable for Work, in New York in May. Photo: AP<\/p>\n

Avantika Vandanapu was born in January 2005 in California. Her parents, Anupama Reddy Chintala and Srikanth Vandanapu, hail from Hyderabad, India, and raised her as a Hindu. \u201cAs I\u2019ve grown older, I have found a lot of comfort in my faith and my culture,\u201d the actress told Cosmopolitan.<\/p>\n

She also recalled being bullied as a kid for wearing a bindi to school, but now considers it \u201csymbolic of how open I am about who I am\u201d. Avantika moved to India at age nine and completed a portion of her secondary education through home-schooling. She later returned to the US, eventually settling in New York at the age of 17. She is currently an undergraduate at Columbia University.<\/p>\n

She began her acting career in India\"AvantikaAvantika Vandanapu at the 2026 Disney Upfront, in New York. Photo: Getty Images via AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At 21, Avantika Vandanapu \u2013 known mononymously as Avantika \u2013 is already one of Hollywood\u2019s most watchable rising…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[220197,12731,220198,220199,220200,4670,14648,139564,4550,146,7644,6622,6370,85,207,46,16621,71287],"class_list":["post-474008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-abhinaya-abby-chilukuri","tag-amazon-prime-video","tag-avantika","tag-avantika-vandanapu","tag-brahmotsavam","tag-california","tag-columbia-university","tag-cosmopolitan","tag-disney","tag-entertainment","tag-entertainment-tonight","tag-hulu","tag-hyderabad","tag-il","tag-india","tag-israel","tag-manhattan","tag-mindy-kaling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474008","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=474008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}