Ethermac Exchange-Avantika talks 'Tarot' and that racist 'Tangled' backlash: 'Media literacy is a dying art'

Heading into "Mean Girls,Ethermac Exchange" Avantika Vandanapu was bracing for the worst.

"I had mentally prepared for everyone to dislike me," she says.

So the 19-year-old actress, known simply as Avantika, was pleasantly surprised when many considered her Karen Shetty the standout of the musical remake. The movie has already given her "pull in rooms that I didn't know I could get into before," she teases.

This weekend, she's back with her second film within four months: "Tarot" (in theaters Friday), in which a group of friends participate in a tarot reading, only to start dying at the hand of monsters from the cursed deck.

Avantika also chats with USA TODAY about the most challenging aspect of starring in a horror movie, studying at Columbia University, and, yes, that "Tangled" backlash.

Who is Avantika? How the 'Mean Girls' star got her start

Though she grew up in California, Avantika started acting professionally in India in 2016. South Asian representation in Hollywood was "nowhere near where it is at now," she says, and her mom feared sending her into an American film industry that felt "inherently against" people who look like her.

In India, though, Avantika found that roles typically dry up for adolescents and soon landed the lead in 2021's "Spin," the Disney Channel's first movie centered on an Indian American character. After transitioning into American productions, she also had parts in "Diary of a Future President," "Senior Year" and "The Sex Lives of College Girls."

Her breakout moment arrived when she starred as Karen in "Mean Girls," a character previously portrayed by white actresses.

"I thought it was really, really cool that someone from an ethnicity that is typically shown to only be dorky nerds got to play someone who is so openly stupid," she says, adding that it "feels nice to have championed a little bit of growth."

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Avantika says that 'Tangled' backlash 'definitely did scare me'

In April, Avantika received racist backlash over speculation she'll star as Rapunzel in a Disney live-action "Tangled" remake, echoing the toxicity Rachel Zegler and Halle Bailey faced after being cast in remakes of "Snow White" and "The Little Mermaid," respectively.

The difference? Disney hasn't even announced a "Tangled" remake, let alone Avantika's casting. According to BuzzFeed News, the source appeared to be an X user who later said they "tweeted it for fun."

"Media literacy is a dying art in the day and age of social media, where you can consume content in short snippets and feel like you know everything without doing even brief research on it," Avantika says. "It's very easy for people to jump to conclusions."

Avantika Vandanapu receives backlash:The internet went wild over speculation she'd play Rapunzel in 'Tangled' remake

Avantika adds she had a "great support system" and "made it out" after letting the racist abuse "roll off" her back. "When people make comments that are so evidently founded in racism, to me, it just seems stupid and it just seems ridiculous," she says. 

Still, "to get a taste of what Rachel (Zegler) and Halle (Bailey) were experiencing, on a much smaller scale, definitely did scare me a little, because it must have been so much harder for them," Avantika says. 

Avantika opens up about going to college to prove her family wrong

The past year has marked a period of change for Avantika, who also moved to New York to study cultural anthropology at Columbia University.

"The running assumption in my extended family has always been that my parents let me do acting because I was stupid, and because I wasn't good at school," she says. "And I really, really hated that this was the narrative, that somebody had to choose to be an artist because of a lack of capability to succeed in an academic environment."

But balancing work and academics has been difficult, Avantika says, so she's taking a temporary leave from college with plans to return next semester. "Realizing when is a good time to take a break and not burn myself out and prioritize has been helpful," she says. 

Avantika reveals the most difficult part of starring in her new horror movie, 'Tarot'

In "Tarot," each character receives a horoscope based on a tarot card and their astrological sign, and Avantika had a personal connection to the material. "My mom was super into astrology growing up, and I grew up very much into the occult and astrology," she says, so doing a film that combined both was a "no-brainer." Plus, "horror is my favorite genre," she notes.

It was both Avantika's first American horror movie and the first movie she shot as an adult. She recalls learning she had been cast in "Mean Girls" after a long, stressful day of filming "Tarot" and amid a fight with her dad about her college application essay.

"That whole day had felt like a fever dream, and this just added to it," Avantika remembers. "I was like, 'Truly, what is happening right now?'"

But the hardest part of making a horror movie was how exhausting it was to shoot scenes where she flees for her life. "I'm really not a runner," she says, laughing. Still, she would "absolutely love" to do more work in the genre.

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What's next for Avantika?

Talk of "Tangled" aside, Avantika does have a Disney princess project lined up: "A Crown of Wishes," a Disney+ adaptation of a fantasy book that draws on Hindu mythology. She's set to produce and play Princess Gauri.

But if the Rapunzel role did come Avantika's way, would she now think twice about taking it? She says only that she won't allow trolls a say in her career.

"Forming your decisions in this industry and making art as somebody who is really passionate about stories is not, to me, something that can continue to happen and thrive if you're afraid of what people are going to say and are afraid of haters."