AVAN
JOGIA

Avan Jogia works across acting, writing and directing, moving between screen characters and work made for the page. Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, on February 9, 1992, Jogia became familiar to young television audiences through an ensemble comedy before appearing in dramas and genre films. The shift between those settings makes the timing of a performance especially interesting: a quiet response can serve a joke, a mystery or a moment of danger.

In Victorious (2010–2013), Jogia played Beck Oliver among a group of students at a performing-arts school. An ensemble gives each performer a particular rhythm within the group; Beck’s comparatively composed manner helps shape the exchanges around him. The part introduced Jogia to a broad television audience and provides a starting point for seeing how a character can be defined through interactions rather than through a single dramatic speech.

The television drama Twisted placed Jogia in the role of Danny Desai, a different setting in which a character’s past affects how others respond to him. Moving from a school comedy into a mystery changes the meaning of the same pause or look: the audience may search it for clues. That change of genre asks a performer to manage what the viewer knows and when, while keeping the relationships between characters credible.

Film roles include Berkeley in Zombieland: Double Tap (2019) and Leon Kennedy in Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021). Both take place in worlds threatened by catastrophe, yet one uses horror alongside comedy while the other draws on a video-game setting. Jogia’s characters meet different groups of survivors, and the contrast makes it possible to watch how a performance adjusts to each film’s balance of danger and humour.

Jogia’s writing offers another point of entry. Mixed Feelings brings together poetry, stories and art concerned with mixed-race identity; Autopsy (of an Ex-Teen Heartthrob) is a later poetry collection that considers fame and other emotions. The publishers describe work that uses language and imagery as well as performance. Read alongside the screen credits, the books show a creator working with different forms and audiences.