Before moving to Los Angeles two and a half years ago, Janina Gavankar’s biggest screen credits were minor roles in both Barbershop films, but last year the Joliet, Ill., native landed a role as newcomer Papi on Season 4 of The L Word.

Gavankar majored in theater at the University of Illinois at Chicago and is also a classically trained pianist, vocalist and orchestral percussionist. Her more recent musical undertakings can be sampled on her website. Her hit “Tell Me What” was recorded years ago with a friend who later remixed it in India. “He added two vocalists and they’re badasses,” Gavankar says. “One is rapping in Punjabi, the other one is singing in Hindi, I’m singing in English, and he’s sort of talking/rapping in English.” She adds that she’s itching to get back into the studio to record more music once she has some time off.

We recently spoke to Gavankar about her latest gigs — not only on The L Word but also as Ms. Dewey, the face of an online interactive search engine.

AfterEllen.com: So, how is that you became part of The L Word?
Janina Gavankar: They had an opening, and I just auditioned. I thought, I think maybe I could really do this. It’s funny because you get so many auditions, and you read them and you go out on them anyway, but sometimes you say to yourself, “This really just isn’t me, and I don’t know if I can necessarily pull this one off.” But I read Papi and thought, she’s definitely the opposite of me, but I think I can pull this off. So I just gave it everything I had.

AE: In what ways are you and Papi opposites?
JG: Oh my gosh, so many ways. Well, she’s from a different part of the country than I am, so our culture is very different. She’s more masculine. She has so much game, and I really don’t. She has no fear. She just sees someone and says, “I can have that person.”

AE: Is she a similar character to Shane in that respect?
JG: I don’t know. I always sort of felt like Shane was just this misunderstood girl who had a hard time in relationships, period. Not that she was a player and used women as conquests.

AE: For Papi they’re conquests?
JG: Um, I would say a little bit. But I think Papi has an inner struggle with her playership, her playerness, playerism — I don’t know how to say that [laughs]. Because on the one hand, she likes being a player, knowing that everyone’s talking about how great she is in bed and how she’s just someone that people fall over. But on the other hand, when people call her out and say, “You know, this player business is bulls---,” she can’t take the criticism. Because, I think, when she connects with a person, when she hooks up with them, she connects with them for life. She really loves that person for as long as they’re together and will keep that love for the rest of their lives together. They’ll remain friends forever.

AE: Are you able to say anything more about what’s in store for her character?
JG: I can’t say much, but you get to meet different sides of her. You get to meet her best friend who she loves dearly, Tasha. And she falls for someone midway through the season, which doesn’t happen often in Papi’s life.

AE: What was the most challenging aspect of playing that role?
JG: I think the most challenging thing was having it be my first big gig and having to play someone entirely different than me. It’s hard enough, the pressure of having to step up to the plate. I was just surrounded by so many beautiful, talented, extraordinary women, and having to step up to that plate is a sort of a pressure-filled thing in the first place, and having to do that and also play someone entirely different than me, it was a lot of pressure.

I have no idea what’s going to happen. I have no idea whether I’m going to hate it. I have no idea if I’m going to love it. I haven’t seen anything, so I have no idea. I’ve seen bits and pieces and clips; I haven’t seen much at all. I was just interviewed by someone who had seen six episodes, and I was like, “This is not fair! Everybody’s seen more than I have.” I’m Googling to find the press pics, you know? We don’t see [the episodes] until they come out. Or maybe I’m just not asking the right people [laughs]. I think it’s just that it comes out when it comes out, and everybody’s OK with that, but I’m the one who’s nervous and freaking out and overthinking.

AE: What was it like coming on as a new person alongside these women who’ve had this show going for a couple of years?
JG: I sort of felt like I was a freshman going into a high school filled with seniors, but they didn’t make me feel like that at all. And also, just being surrounded by women like Jennifer Beals and Pam Grier and Cybill Shepherd and Marlee Matlin — these women have been working for a really long time. They’ve had fabulous, strong, long careers. I never really wanted to be some big, famous whatever; I just want to be working 30 years from now. To be surrounded by them was definitely a dream, and I’m still realizing what I’ve learned.

AE: Is there anyone you bonded with particularly well?
JG: Yeah. We all get along really well, but I would say that I loved Pam Grier. I got to work with her a lot anyway, and I got to sort of get to know her, but she’s just a legend.

AE: When did you first see The L Word, and what did you think of the show at that point?
JG: Let’s see. … I had seen episodes along the way, but I didn’t have Showtime then. I grew up in a household that didn’t have cable television. I didn’t have it till the middle of college or something. I didn’t even know what I was missing; then I’d be at people’s houses, and I’d see an episode here or there, and I was really taken by the show — by the level of drama and how full these characters were. I always knew that the show was giving something edgy and new. But I didn’t really get it until I auditioned, and then I did a full marathon of all of it, and I just became an instant fan. What’s going to happen to Alice? You know? I had to know.”