Tara wears archive jewelry by Alexis Bittar
All Hail Queen Tara
A quick search online reveals the prophetic power behind a name. Presenting our latest Submission muse: Tara Raani. In Sanskrit, the word Tārā (तारा) means “star” and Rāṇī (राणी) means “queen”.
With a name like this, it’s no wonder Tara is currently serving the people across several outlets. Sharing musings and fiction on various platforms (her online following is massive and devoted) , acting (check out her multi-seasonal story arc on the show "Grown-ish”) and modeling (her accolades, as evidenced on models.com, leaves no crumbs), to name a few. Below, a look at how Tara got to where she is right now and what she might conquer next.
PHOTOGRAPHY + DIRECTION CÉSAR BUITRAGO @cesarbuitragostudio
INTERVIEW + STYLING JESPER GUDBERGSEN @yessirjesper
HAIR SONNY MOLINA @sonnymolinahair
MAKEUP MOLLIE GLOSS @molliegloss @agency.paradis
DP VIOLET SMITH @viobensmith
GAFFER JOHN PETERS @internetjohn_
SET DESIGN BRAD THORNTON @thorntonprojects
PRODUCER CAROLINA BISHOP @carolinabishop_
PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANT DIEGO RODRIGUEZ SAEZ @diegorodriguezzss
1ST ASSISTANT CAMERA VERONICA LUPO
GAFFER ASSISTANT FARHAN KAMDAR @kamdarfarhan
THANK YOU KEVIN CHUNG@kevinkchung NYLAH SCYPION-BUTLER @nyp_slyp@kev_mgmt
Hi Tara ! What have you been up to this summer so far?
A lot of singing and dancing!!
Oooh - is this for something secret, or are you allowed to share?
I sang and danced a lot when I was a kid and then kind of stopped. But these past couple years, I thought - wait - I'm really passionate about singing and dancing. I'd like to be able to do it at a professional level on screen at least, so I've been training really hard on both things. I have a really fun dance video coming out soon and I’m also working on a singing demo reel of sorts…
Wow
All these things get very delayed because my schedule is so insane… I’ll set up a voice lesson a month ahead and when the time comes around, I’ve been to 5 countries already - planning is impossible. So - TBD, coming soon…
But you’re getting back into the groove of it?
Yeah! I grew up singing in the choir, but learning to sing professionally on screen is such a different way of singing. I basically say that I am in Disney princess training because I want to unlock that Disney voice. You know; I want to learn how to be very animated and for people to really feel what’s happening in the song through the way I am saying it. That’s really the focus for me and I’m learning it’s very different than contemporary singing
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Tara wears a dress by Christopher John Rogers
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Tara wears a dress by Kritika Manchanda
Going way back to the beginning of things - how do you present yourself to the world? How do you introduce yourself?
I guess that changes depending on the setting, but I like to say some combination of “ I'm an artist”
I'm a writer and I'm a revolution. I'm a river, I’m a mountain. I'm a star. That's what my name means in Hindi.
Do you feel like it’s ever difficult to navigate all the balls that are in the air - knowing how to do so many different things well?
Yeah, definitely.
Do you feel like anything ever gets watered down when one thing takes priority?
Listen, I think it's a huge blessing to be multi-talented and multi-passionate but it's also kind of a curse because you're constantly balancing a million different things that you want to do. Right now I have this dance video coming out, I have my singing demo coming out, I'm acting and I'm doing improv. I'm also writing and making shorts this year. I'm modeling basically full-time and I also have family and friends, so it’s a lot.. Taking care of myself is also kind of important. And paying bills - let’s not forget about that part. It’s really challenging, but I tell myself this: Life is really long, I'm gonna do all the things I want to do and it might not be in the order that I want. Nothing in my life has happened on a timeline that makes any sense whatsoever.
Also at this point. I'm not really financially stable yet, so I put a lot of priority on the things that are bringing in the coin which for me right now are being a performer, an actor and being a model. For example, I was pretty much living out of a suitcase for the past year, pursuing modeling jobs, and I had to put all my rehearsals on pause. I had to postpone my short film and I didn't get any writing done. I didn't bring a laptop with me because I was so worried about the constant travel.
For me, it’s about reminding yourself that you have to focus on one thing at a time, depending on where your priorities are. There were times when I had to prioritize my family and my relationships. Right now, I'm putting a lot of emphasis on acting and modeling and in a few years, I think that emphasis will be towards writing and directing more so than it is now.
I just keep telling myself life is really long. You've done so many things already. You're gonna do all the things you want to do. There are different seasons for different things and I am excited for every season of life and every opportunity I'll have.
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Tara wears a dress and arm piece by Caroline Zimbalist
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Tara wears archive jewelry by Alexis Bittar
I just keep telling myself life is really long. You've done so many things already. You're gonna do all the things you want to do. There are different seasons for different things and I am excited for every season of life and every opportunity I'll have.
That's beautiful. I mean, who are we to think that we can be in charge of where life takes us anyway - I think it's important to go with the flow like you are.
Right, religiously.
Were you encouraged to pursue these creative sides of yourself by your family and parents? Tell me a little bit about how that all started…
I think it was definitely always in my bones. My parents actually met and fell in love playing a husband and wife in a college play and they both always really loved acting. My dad is an incredible painter and my mom is also an incredible artist and creative in so many ways. Both of them work in the STEM field, but they’re both deeply artistic people.
I grew up singing, playing the piano and viola, and I was always really keen about writing plays. I used to always write a Christmas play and cast all my cousins in it. I actually wrote a play for my fifth grade talent show: I cast it, starred in it and it was a huge hit. People told my parents, your daughter is going to be famous! This was all in my conventional little town in Minnesota, I wasn’t at LaGuardia School of the Arts here in New York, you know…
I was always really passionate about theater, which developed into making videos and little movies in high school. In college I became the executive producer of our satire news show, where we were pumping out an episode every two weeks and I learned so much from that. That's where I really understood the craft, because you get to practice over and over again - literally a trial by fire. Since then, I’ve been self-producing a lot of stuff in the indie space, which eventually led to having my big break in the studio space, with “Grown-ish”.
What did you study in college?
I studied film and computer science, a double major. I initially only studied film for my first two years, but after interning at NBC after my second year, I saw that I needed a backup plan. I was working on an MSNBC show and saw how the employees were struggling - working insane hours, commuting from Connecticut, working 10+ years but never quite being able to climb up the ladder. It didn’t seem like a sustainable lifestyle to me. I also was thinking a lot about how network TV was slowly dying.
I grew up without a lot and didn’t want to start my career in a crumbling industry - I didn’t want to come out of college and be struggling immediately.
So I decided to tack on a trade skill. I knew I wanted to be an artist, but wasn’t sure what that would look like financially, so I decided - let me tack on a trade I can always have in my cap, something I could do anywhere at any time. And it led me to find a full-time job in New York right after college, at Google.
How did your parents feel about your choices - did they feel better once you added something more “safe’ to your degree?
It's funny. They actually never really said anything.. When I asked them about it in retrospect, they told me it was because they just knew I was gonna be successful no matter what I chose. They said they trusted my decisions and never had any doubt. I was speechless - thank you for telling me now, but I kinda wish you would have told me then…? They were just like: you were born to slay and you're slaying. What questions do you have for us?
That's amazing. It sounds like you have a pretty great relationship with your family. Still to this day I imagine.
I do, I’m very lucky to have my parents.
You’re dancing, you act and model, now I also know you sing. Is there anything to add to that plethora of talents?
My first art form was actually henna, or mehndi. And I still do a lot of drawing and painting, although I don’t have as much time for it at the moment. But you've seen all my tattoos: I drew all of those myself. I've made furniture, clothes and paintings.. In another life I would have liked to be a painter. You never know, once I’m 50 maybe I’ll pick that up again
There are so many seasons in life…
Exactly, I'm just waiting for my different seasons to come back around.
Does having all these different sides to you ever impact the way you create? Do you feel like you need to shut things off and zero in on one thing at a time?
Yeah, definitely. Before I booked “Grownish” I was feeling really lost and really down on myself. I felt like I was firing all cylinders, it was exhausting and I was getting burned out. I told myself; we're gonna pause for nine months and just focus on acting. We're not writing, we’re simply not doing anything else. I just went ham and was so laser focused on one thing. It sucked because I really missed all the other things and constantly felt like I was behind on a million things, but then boom: that nine months of pushing got me “Grownish”.
There are times like that where you have to focus on one thing and at other times - like right now - where I'm doing a very delicate balance between a number of things. At the moment, I feel like I'm making so little progress on everything because I'm stretched kind of wide, but it just is what it is…
I find the way you use various social media to document your life very interesting. You have a sort of running diary across platforms.. Is that a tool to keep your sanity in a way, and can you talk a little about what that does for you?
I have been a huge documenter since I was a child, I would scrapbook everything.. What I call the great work of my life is a diary that I've had for 12 years. It's one giant document and I write in it almost every single day. It's like my bible - thousands of pages long, I return to it constantly and it has served me in so many ways. It's really nice having everything in one doc, because you can control+find to go back to this date, that person or one particular situation. So it's been the most valuable thing to me.
I've had a video and photo archive since I was pretty young too. I think I've always been really into documentation, firstly because I move so quickly that things kind of pass me by. And secondly because I really value my life and want to remember it in different ways, to hold on to it. I just love life so much that I'm like, I wish I could just capture this moment forever.
It's funny you say I share a lot online because when I look at my life, I have a lot of boundaries about what I post online and to me it's such a small circle of the pie. It's kind of funny when people tell me I'm brave for sharing so much online and I’m like - bitch, I have 2,000 pages of a diary. …
It's helpful to document along the way, because in our industry we don't necessarily have touch points, moment’s where you get an A+ on an exam, so keeping track of it helps ground me to my reality.
How important is it for you to share the documenting - what is the difference in what you share and what you keep to yourself?
I'm very particular about what I share and I try to keep it focused on work or on fictional stories. I had a pretty big TikTok miniseries, “My Brother’s Match”, which was purely fictional - none of that was based in real life. It did happen to be a gay girl in New York doing shit, but I have nothing in common with her.
I am on Instagram, but I pretty much try to keep it to work. I've never talked about my romantic relationships much, never about my friendships and I really rarely talk about family. Those things are very private for me.
Even all my internal spiritual work and whatnot - I keep that pretty close, because I'm not here to teach - right now at least. I love to feel seen in different ways, which is why I’m a performer, and I think what I share is for me to make myself feel seen in various ways. Sometimes that means being really fabulous, walking down a runway or showing BTS, and other times I share my creative fictional work and art.
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Tara wears a dress by 101%, stylist’s own head scarf and tights
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Tara wears a full look by Collina Strada
Of course, it's also a promotional tool to some extent right ? That is a given for all of us.
Exactly. Instagram is just LinkedIn.
Do you have any advice you would give your younger self ?
Trust in yourself, always. You know what's right for you over anyone else. I think it's really important to take advice from people you trust and to have your mind open to things, but I grew up thinking everyone else’s opinion - parents, teachers, my elders - was correct and that what I was feeling was wrong.
With every year of my life I am getting closer to knowing that what I think for myself is right, what I want and need is correct and if I feel weird in my belly, that means something is up. It’s not IBS - that’s your gut telling you something!
When searching your name online, one of the first things that comes up is that you are a queer actor. Is that something you care to talk about with us - what your queerness means to you?
Yeah, that’s something I want to talk about, but maybe not in the way it's expected? I think I have a really difficult friendship with identity politics. I think that there's a representation industrial complex and it feels like our identities are just used to sell things at this point. Of course it's been really important to me to identify as queer and Asian / Indian American to find community, but beyond that it just doesn't feel productive anymore. I think specifically with the queer identity I'm like, why does everyone care so much about who I'm fucking? Being gay is literally the least interesting thing about me.
I understand the historical weight of it. I understand that our people have been persecuted - we are still being persecuted - and it is important to claim that identity and thereby create power. But there’s two sides to it: I'm out here waving my pride flag and at the same time: can everyone just shut up and just understand me as a complex individual, who is not super comfortable talking about who they're sleeping with? I'm prudish! I present as very sexy, but I am not a person motivated by sex. I think that's really hard to navigate, given the importance of identity politics right now.
It's hard because I am a queer person and that absolutely changes how I see the world, how I make art and how I relate to other people. At the same time, I don't want to be seen as just that. It feels like if you don’t say you’re queer, that’s just erased, but if you do say it in a work setting, that becomes the most important thing about you.
Your character on Grownish is also queer - was that a choice on the writers end or did that happen organically?
The character wasn’t meant to be specifically desi, but was meant to be a queer character, which was exciting to me. When the show came about, I used to be more active on tiktok, where I was kind of this queer desi older sister that nobody had growing up. I realized that I was not necessarily on this platform teaching, however, me just being myself was and is super empowering for people. That's something I'm very proud of myself for and I'm just so happy that I have had that impact, through social media and the show. I have teens and tweens reach out to me all the time on Instagram, telling me how much my content has meant to them and how validated or safe they feel. In my low moments, that gives me reason to keep being myself and to keep doing whatever it is I’m doing, because I am making a difference in someone’s life.
Jumping back into talking about your background. I know your heritage and culture is important to you in many ways, including the way you express yourself visually. How do you feel it influences your personal style and how you look at beauty?
I love calling back to quote-unquote traditional styling, which in my case for the most part is in jewelry, hair and eyeliner. Those are my main ways to call back to the culture, mostly in pretty subtle ways.. My tattoos are all fairly traditional mehndi style and of course, those always stay on me. It can be a difficult thing to navigate, but I just kind of go with the flow and see what feels good. I don't go into something thinking I need to Indianify an outfit or I need my mehndi tattoos to be showing or anything like that. I go into it saying, what feels like a fucking vibe right now? And I feel so grateful that I come from this very rich cultural background where I've so much to choose from. I feel so proud to be Indian because I have endless stylish choices to reference
What does Beauty mean to you? And where do you find it?
That's a tough question. I'm really trying to be beauty-neutral about humans, about people. I get that from my vantage point as a model, this is kind of ironic or probably sounds kind of privileged and a little bit stupid, but that's okay. Personally, I think about beauty a lot. Going back to my roots in studying Hinduism and old Indian paintings; they’re all about symmetry and harmony. A lot of our designs have their roots in raised things; things that rise to the Sun, patterns of leaves and the symmetry of different flowers.
I think of beauty most when I stop in the street and I'm like wow - this feels like harmony. What I'm seeing right now is harmonious. When I see a perfectly symmetrical leaf formation on a branch, or a harmonious flower - that stops me in my tracks every single time. That to me is beauty - and symmetry is a big part of it, I think symmetry is very harmonious. That's why all my tattoos are also symmetrical - everything is on both sides. So, yeah, I think that's obvious to me. Nature is wild, just mind blowing.
You mention Hinduism - do you have a spiritual practice and does it help you stay grounded across the pretty tumultuous industries you travel in?
Hinduism is really interesting because it's not necessarily a religion. It's a philosophy, a belief system and a way of life. And one of the most important things I've learned is around eating and cooking, and how to nourish the body in a physical way. Things like drinking warm water when you wake up, eating certain types of food more at certain times of the day, and knowing how to cook with different spices.
And I treat myself with Eastern medicine. I always carry my little pack of homeopathic medicines that my parents have taught me to use when I travel. So a lot of what I get from it is physical nourishment. I do a Puja or a prayer every Tuesday - that's my lucky day - where I do some chanting and you tell a story and eat some fruit.
In Hinduism, the goal is becoming one with yourself. And not to worry as much about external factors. The only constant is change - kind of vibes. You can't control anything outside of yourself. So I’m really focusing on myself, trying to be myself, finding who I am and constantly learning about and staying true to myself.
Speaking of change - where do you see yourself moving in the next phase of your career and life - can you share some goals for the near future?
I think my next goal is to book my next role on television. I love TV and I would love to be in another comedy. My goal after that is that I really want to be a Disney princess. I want to sing,I want to dance - I want to be a motherfucking.. either Disney princess, or villain - I feel like I might be better suited towards being a Disney villain. A villain who is fab and mean, but actually just deeply wounded and in the end - look! She’s actually the good guy!
I'm sure I will direct a film at some point, but I'm just deeply passionate about television. For the next 10 years or so I’m really focused on being a performer, but down the road, I want to direct television. I am really excited to apply to the festival circuit and start defining my visual aesthetic as a director
Before we go - are there any nonprofit organizations or mutual aid you have a relationship with that you’d like to give a shout-out?
Yeah, I've worked with the Brooklyn Mutual Aid groups, North, South and East. Those are really great organizations. I also pretty regularly make food and put it in the community fridges, the NYC Community Fridge map is a great resource.