Geraldine Viswanathan – Wikipedia

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Australian actress

Geraldine Viswanathan
Geraldine Viswanathan at SXSW Red Carpet premiere of BLOCKERS adjusted (cropped).jpg

Viswanathan in 2018
Born (1995-06-20) 20 June 1995 (age 27)
Occupation Actress
Years active 2014–present

Geraldine Viswanathan ( VISS-wə-NAH-thən;[1][2] born 20 June 1995)[3] is an Australian actress. She gained attention in the role of Kayla in the 2018 film Blockers,[4] for which Refinery29 referred to her as “the film’s breakout star”.[5] Viswanathan starred in the 2019 coming-of-age film Hala,[6] as well as Bad Education.[7] She also played a recurring role in the Australian series Janet King, and appears in the TBS comedy anthology Miracle Workers.[8][9]

Early life[edit]

Viswanathan’s father, Suresh Viswanathan, is a doctor who works in nuclear medicine and is of Indian Tamil descent.[10] Her mother, Anja Raith, is from Switzerland[11] and was raised by a father who was a filmmaker and ballet dancer.[12][13][14] Raith was once an aspiring actress who attended musical theatre school in London before getting married and settling down in Newcastle; she runs an acting school called Anja’s Place.[10]

Viswanathan grew up with a younger sister and a deep love of horses and animals.[10][15] She attended the Hunter School of the Performing Arts, Newcastle, where she was in drama class.[10][15]

At the age of 15, Viswanathan and her family moved to Los Angeles, California for a few months, where she went through the process of securing a manager with the hopes of obtaining Disney and Nickelodeon roles.[16] In later years,[when?] Viswanathan performed standup and sketch comedy with her group named “Freudian Nip”.[15]

In 2015, Viswanathan was shortlisted for the Heath Ledger Scholarship.[10] She contemplated going to university to study international studies and media, but instead dove into acting and made working in the United States her goal, as roles in Australia are limited.[16]

At the age of four, Viswanathan appeared in a Kodak television commercial.[10] In 2016, she appeared in Emo the Musical and went to Los Angeles for her first pilot season.[10][17] In 2017, Viswanathan joined the cast of ABC’s drama series Janet King in the role of Bonnie.

Viswanathan was once a reader in casting rooms, and was the reader for the Australian casting process for Crazy Rich Asians.[10]

Her big break came in 2018, when she was cast in the movie Blockers. In the same year, she was cast in the Netflix film The Package and the drama film Hala which went to Sundance Film Festival. The Hollywood Reporter included her in its “Next Gen Talent” list as one of “20 rising stars among the blockbuster breakouts and small-screen discoveries who are shaking up the industry”.[10]

In 2019, Viswanathan was cast in the anthology series Miracle Workers.[18][19] In 2019, Viswanathan played Rachel in the film Bad Education, which is based on a true story of an embezzlement scandal. She received critical acclaim at Sundance Film Festival, and a Emmy nomination.[10][15]

Viswanathan starred in The Broken Hearts Gallery (2020). The film was due to be released in Summer of 2020, but was postponed to September due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[15] In the film, she stars as the heroine Lucy, a gallery assistant who struggles to give up items from past relationships.[10][15][20] About the film, she noted that she feels fortunate to represent brown girls on screen, and appreciated that her mother in the film is blonde and looks a lot like her real mother.[15]

Viswanathan provided the voice of Tawnie in season six of BoJack Horseman.[16]

In October 2021, she was cast in the psychological thriller film Cat Person, based on the a short story by Kristen Roupenian published in 2017 in The New Yorker.[21]

In January 2022, Viswanathan was cast the film The Beanie Bubble, co-directed by Kristin Gore and Damian Kulash.[22]

Personal life[edit]

In March 2020, Viswanathan purchased an apartment in Brooklyn, New York.[15]

Filmography[edit]

Film[edit]

Key
Films that have not yet been released Denotes films that have not yet been released

Television[edit]

Year Title Role Notes
2015 Lost Angels Sarah
2017 The Y2K Bug Addison
Janet King Bonnie Mahesh Recurring role (series 3), 8 episodes
2018 Nippers of Dead Bird Bay
2019–present Miracle Workers Eliza Hunter (season 1)
Alexandra “Allie” Shitshoveler (season 2)
Prudence Aberdeen (season 3) 		Main cast
2019–2020 BoJack Horseman Tawnie (voice) Recurring role (season 6), 3 episodes
2021 Saturday Morning All Star Hits! Lottie Wolfe

References[edit]

  1. ^ “John Legend; April Ryan; and Geraldine Viswanathan. Also: Jon Epcar sits-in with the 8G Band”. Late Night with Seth Meyers. NBC. 26 February 2019. Retrieved 10 December 2020.
  2. ^ “Dacre Montgomery & Geraldine Viswanathan Teach You Australian Slang”. Vanity Fair. YouTube. 5 August 2020. Retrieved 24 September 2020.
  3. ^ “Blockers Star Geraldine Viswanathan On The Crucial Scene That Nearly Didn’t Happen”. MTV.
  4. ^ Schwartz, Dana (5 April 2018). “‘Blockers’ star Geraldine Viswanathan learned how to act drunk from Anne Hathaway”. Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 29 March 2019.
  5. ^ “Introducing Geraldine Viswanathan, Blockers’ Breakout Star”. Refinery29.
  6. ^ Catsoulis, Jeannette (21 November 2019). “‘Hala’ Review: Girl, Disrupted”. The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
  7. ^ Kroll, Justin (10 July 2018). “Hugh Jackman’s ‘Bad Education’ Adds ‘Blockers’ Star Geraldine Viswanathan (EXCLUSIVE)”. Variety. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
  8. ^ Coleman, Nancy (16 September 2020). “Geraldine Viswanathan on Karaoke and Lizzo Dance Breaks”. The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
  9. ^ N’Duka, Amanda (24 April 2017). “‘Big Little Lies’ Kathryn Newton, Gideon Adlon & Geraldine Viswanathan Make ‘The Pact’“. Deadline. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Rockman, Lisa (6 July 2019). “Geraldine Viswanathan is making waves in Hollywood”. Newcastle Herald. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  11. ^ “The 14 most talked-about international actors of South Asian origin we saw on our screens in 2020”. Vogue. 17 December 2020. Archived from the original on 3 November 2021. Retrieved 3 November 2021.
  12. ^ Jones, Isabel (22 April 2020). “Bad Education Transported Geraldine Viswanathan Back to the “Most Unflattering Fashion Period”“. InStyle. Some people think I’m Malaysian and Swedish, but I’m Indian and Swiss and born in Australia.
  13. ^ Kannan, Indira (27 September 2019). “Crossover star: Hala actor Geraldine Viswanathan is making waves at TIFF”. Business Standard India. Retrieved 12 May 2020.
  14. ^ “Ashanti Omkar – Geraldine Viswanathan – BBC Sounds”. BBC Asian Network. 10 January 2021.
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h “Meet Geraldine Viswanathan, a Leading Lady With Perfect Comic Timing”. W. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  16. ^ a b c Guerrasio, Jason. “How Geraldine Viswanathan went from a scene stealer in ‘Blockers’ to rom-com queen in ‘The Broken Hearts Gallery’“. Business Insider. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  17. ^ “Jamali”. Emo The Musical. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
  18. ^ Ramos, Dino-Ray (14 November 2017). “Geraldine Viswanathan, Jon Bass, Karan Soni Join TBS Comedy ‘Miracle Workers’“. Deadline.
  19. ^ Ramos, Dino-Ray (14 November 2017). “Geraldine Viswanathan, Jon Bass, Karan Soni Join TBS Comedy ‘Miracle Workers’“. Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
  20. ^ “Breaking Big: Why you’ll fall in love with ‘Broken Hearts Gallery’ star Geraldine Viswanathan”. Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  21. ^ “Geraldine Viswanathan Joins Studiocanal and New Yorker Studios’ ‘Cat Person’“.
  22. ^ Kroll, Justin (11 January 2022). “Apple Lands Feature Film ‘The Beanie Bubble’ Starring Zach Galifianakis, Elizabeth Banks, Sarah Snook And Geraldine Viswanathan”. Deadline Hollywood.
  23. ^ ‘7 Days’: Film Review | Tribeca 2021

External links[edit]