We Spoke to “Mean Girls” Star Avantika About Her New Film “Tarot”

You may have seen her first as Karen in this year’s musical adaptation of Mean Girls, but this isn’t the last you’ll see of 19-year-old actress Avantika.

She’s been acting since she was 11 years old. Before Mean Girls, she was known best for her role in the two-time Emmy Award-nominated film Spin, where she became the first ever Indian lead of a Disney Channel Original Movie.

Now she stars in the latest horror flick to hit cinemas – Tarot. The film centres on a group of friends who break a sacred rule of Tarot readings – to never use someone else’s deck – and release an evil from within the cursed cards.

Avantika plays Paige – the fun, rich girl of the group, who writer and director Anna Halberg describes as “the group’s mother hen”.

We spoke to Avantika about her love for horror, what it’s like to star in a horror film, representation on-screen, and her top tips on becoming a great ‘scream queen’.

So look, I’ve heard that you’re a big horror fan yourself. What is it about horror films that keep you coming back for more?

Avantika: I mean, like everyone else, like the adrenaline rush! I think I love roller coasters. I love anything adrenaline oriented that does not endanger my safety. …But I love horror movies.

I’m also really easy to scare… Like, my mom… it causes her the worst anxiety because anytime she walks into a room unannounced, I get really, really upset and I get really triggered and she’s like, you’re making me anxious.

And so I feel like… I’ve been doing exposure therapy for, how old? I’m like 19, so like… practically two decades I’ve been doing exposure therapy and hoping that this like… easily frightenable quality of mind goes away. It still hasn’t, but this is me working on it.

What is it like filming a horror movie as opposed to watching one? Do you still find it scary to watch even though you know what’s coming next?

Avantika: It's definitely a lot less scary… I think when I watched Tarot for the first time I was like this is not, like this is not a scary movie. Until like I watched it yesterday again in a select theatre full of people and I was like, okay, this is definitely…this is working. This movie is working.

It's more tiresome to film a horror movie than it is scary. It just like a lot of running and screaming and crying all the time. Like it definitely does get exhausting. But I will say for this movie, our directors Anna and Spencer wanted practical monsters, … they wanted to limit CGI.

So every time we saw the monsters like for the first time, without like, spoiling too much we have like The Magician and The Fool and like, played by like these really incredibly talented like contortionists. It was definitely frightening to interact with them on the initial basis, but I feel like it added to our performances and like gave us something to react to in person, which was cool.

The movie, of course, about like horoscopes and astrology and we know Gen Z love this too - like Mercury Retrograde, all that jazz. This is something you're super into as well right?

I love, yes I love astrology! You have done your research - I love it. I love astrology.

What like what was it like getting to be on set, seeing all the different symbols and stuff put out considering you’re super into it?

Avantika: It was like super fun. I think like that was part of the appeal of doing this movie was that it like so closely integrated this topic that I was super interested in. It was fun to talk to like the experts on set.

And Olwen [Fouéré] was in our film, was incredible. She plays Alma was also like really familiar with Tarot and astrology and so she kind of like gave us a lot of like weird details about it and… was carrying this astrology book with her on set…

…To me, it was really cool to be able to like it's like… three things that I love combined – cinema, horror, and astrology.

Avantika, there's a viral video on TikTok with you and other South Asian women talking about the importance of on-screen representation.

So in Tarot, tell us how you and your character Paige continue to bring positive representative representation to the screen, and in a horror film as well.

Avantika: I love this question. Because I think one of the really cool parts about being part of this film was that like, I'm not first kill, and I think that like, you know, as like a woman of colour, and in this film, a queer woman of colour, I think it's really cool to just not be killed off first.

And to feel like you're enticing audiences about “will she or won't she die”, like you definitely are following through with Paige and kind of, you have that level of suspense, you don't know if she is gonna get killed or not, which I, which I think is cool. Like, I think it is representative of a well-developed character and a character that has given grace, which I think a lot of women of colour in horror are not given.

And so I think it's cool that, Anna and Spencer allowed, like an intersectional character to be experiencing this. And I think it's like, of course, in the grand scheme of things of all of what South Asian women have done to champion more representation in this industry.

And it's a small drop in the pool, sort of in the ocean, but I do think it is a drop nonetheless. And is like something that's really cool and notable about this movie.

My last question for you is a little bit of a deep, meaningful one, but a big theme of the movie is whether or not you can change your fate and I want to know what your take is on that.

Avantika: …I actually do believe in fate, but like I don't believe in death. My version of destiny is what this movie calls fate.

But I think when some like someone says, that's your destiny, like, I really don't believe in the notion of like, a universal higher power deciding a destination for you at the end of whatever journey you're on.

That being said, I think when things happen, and they feel out of sorts, telling yourself that it's fate and that …it's all adding up to something, I think…is a nice comforting notion.

So I think my belief exists somewhere in the middle of…everything you do has a purpose, but you get to decide what the purpose or the end result is, if that makes sense. It's like it's a guideline, more so than it is like a just like a decider, I think.

Ok, queen 🙏👑

Tarot is in cinemas now, so grab your friends and don't forget to grab your student tix!