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In the influencer world, Manasvi Mamgai is a transformative standout. Following her career beginnings as a model and winner of Miss India, Mamgai pivoted to acting and content creation—and, now, has added film producer to her resume. We sat down with the chic tastemaker and multitasker to learn all about her varied career path, summer plans, and how she gets it all done. Take notes!
How’s your summer going so far? What have you been up to?
It’s funny that you ask—I went skydiving yesterday. That’s crazy! Summer’s going great. I was in India the first three months and I just came back. I’m a former Miss India, actor, and a recently turned producer. When I came back, there’s a movie that I was working on as a producer for a few years, and that just took great shape—we have Al Pacino and Katie Holmes attached to that film. We’re leaving to Italy next month for the location scout. So, so far, so good. Work, traveling, traveling with work, doing adventurous things. Talking about traveling—we just did that DAOU trip with The Daily! Work, travel, fun, adventure. Summer’s going great.
How do you balance all of these exciting experiences? Is there lots of planning involved?
It is, and that is actually one of my challenges. I’m very Type A, very go-go-go-go-getter. Sometimes, I do have burnouts, and that’s the flip-side of having such a full life and being at it all the time. Doing this over the years, I’ve figured out how to balance it and how to find time for personal life and where to stop, because I can just keep going on and on. I sometimes have phases where I’m a workaholic, but also I think the beauty of our profession is that there are phases where it’s go-go-go, and then there’s phases that might be a lot of, “hurry up and wait.” You’re just waiting. I’m riding the wave right now. There’s lots happening and I’m very busy, but there have been pockets of time where I haven’t had much for a couple of months, so it comes and goes in waves. Right now, I’m just riding this wave and I’m busy. But as I’m growing older, I’m learning how to have that balance, personal life-work life balance, too.
Great! You got your start after winning the title of Miss India. What did that experience mean to you?
The story goes beyond that. The essence of it comes from being able to take risks, and I’ve always had a big appetite for risks. In India, I grew up as a performer— I was dancing onstage very early on, when I was five, six years old. I grew up on the stage as a performer, and then things took a turn and I started modeling, which was also very risky at that time. I was very young when I started modeling in India. In India, people started modeling at 22 or after college, and I started when I was 16, 17. That was a huge risk that my mom took actually, not me. By the time I was 20, 21, I was already an established model. Right at 16, Elite Models had signed me, so I had a good five years successful run of modeling, but I realized my passion was actually acting and being in front of motion camera and performing, and that came from my love for performance art. At that time, belonging to a non-film family was very tough, so I thought Miss India was a way. Traditionally, Miss India’s go on to becoming successful actresses. If you take Priyanka Chopra, Aishwarya Rai, they have the same exact titles that I won. Priyanka Chopra was Miss India World, the same title as me 10 years before me, so it’s a gateway into movies. I was a very established model, one of the top supermodels in India, and I had to risk that. Pageants are sometimes looked down upon by the fashion world, and I was a fashion model. I was like, Hey, I’m gonna risk [it]. It was a tricky situation, because I was like, Hey, if I don’t win, then I’m gonna embarrass myself and I can’t even go back to modeling. I took that risk. I was like, Hey, I’m going to take that chance, and that chance was successful—but it was a huge risk at that time.
Manasvi in A.L.C
What do you remember about the moment when you won? It sounds so exciting!
In our country, at that time, it was like a bootcamp almost. We would be without our phones, away from our family. We were camped up in a hotel, away from media, away from everybody for about 40 days. It’s a long time. 22 girls, 40 days. It was a grooming camp, so they would train you. It doesn’t happen like that anymore—nowadays, contests are much shorter, like a week, two weeks, and obviously it’s all about social media. At that time, we were in a hotel camped out for 40 days, undergoing training, various kinds of grooming experiences, which were amazing. There was so much discipline, workout, food, and that has shaped me into who I am today as well because I’m so disciplined in life. The end of that 40th day was the pageant, and we were so exhausted because we had 40 days of intense grooming sessions. It was a sigh of relief. I was like, Whoa, I can take some time off. That was the moment that my life honestly changed. Even though pageants are not as relevant today—maybe they are relevant in a different sense, because now pageants have evolved and they’re very inclusive—Miss Universe last year got rid of all their categories, [and] married women, old women, mothers can participate. Pageants are evolving, but they lost their traditional meaning. That moment did change my life. Even today, I will always be a Miss India. It was a life-changing moment, but that very moment and that very evening it was a sense of relief. I was like, Wow, all the hard work paid off, and it was such a relief and I was so happy and on top of the world. I’m an only child with a single mother, so a lot of my happiness was seeing her happy and seeing her sitting in the audience, and feeling her happiness for me more than my own happiness.
That’s so special! When you pivoted from fashion into film, what were some of your favorite projects to work on?
Right after Miss India, I did get a lot of offers, but my focus was the international pageant, and then I didn’t want to do something just for the sake of doing it. I wanted to wait for the right opportunity. After my Miss World [pageant], so a year, year and a half later, I went in the world of serious acting. I enrolled in a theater residency, and then I dabbled with theater, mainstream theater in India, like Indian Broadway—just to give you a parallel of what that kind of theater meant. It’s mainstream theater, and the biggest theater stage in India. One of the plays was called Limbo, and that play was also screened in Paris and was very successful. I went into the serious acting world before I was like, Before I go on, this is how I want to shape my acting career. I did theater first and then I signed my first big studio movie in 2013. It was a Dream launch, so it was the most expensive movie of India in that year. Unfortunately, it didn’t do well—it camped, badly. But it was one of those Dream launches, the superstars, the big studio, blockbuster movie. That’s how it happened. That’s how it started.
Today, you balance production with content creation. Which skills have you transferred from your modeling and acting background when creating social media content?
A lot! First of all, my early modeling days because India’s still a very—not now, but at that time, a very conservative [country]. There was no too much exposure, and I didn’t grow up in the social media phase; that happened after I was already successful. At that time, traveling at such a young age and modeling internationally gave me so much perspective and exposure, and that only shaped my life. That confidence in, say, talking to people, being in new environments, that already gave me a head start on content. I was making content but not really to put out, because I was doing all these things and taping them and filming them for myself. Then, my various stages in entertainment, let it be theater, performance or being modeling, commercial modeling, TV, films—all of this has given me so much insight on various things that helps the content creators. Whether it be talking to people or editing or music or exposure or having different perspectives, I think all of that has shaped me and that’s why I do best in the lifestyle speaking space. I’m being a storyteller, I’m telling a story, and that’s where I flourish the most in the content space.
You just went on our tastemaker trip to DAOU Vineyards. What were some of your top moments?
At this point, the Daily‘s like family to me. Eddie, Nandini, Brandusa—I’ve met them so many times that it really is family. When I meet them, it’s not like a publication I’m working with—it’s just people I’ve known for a few years that are getting together, having so much fun. Every time, I feel like Oh my God, nothing can top this trip, but the next trip is more amazing. That’s exactly what happened with DAOU [Vineyards]. First of all, the Daily somehow manages to put the perfect group together. Similar energies, people that really do get along. Most people on this trip, even though I was meeting them for the first time, I somehow knew these people through my social connections. It wasn’t a complete new person. I was like, Oh, I know you from so and so and so. They managed to put such a perfect group together, and the place, Paso Robles itself, is so beautiful. It was really informative because we drink all these wines always, but we never know what goes into making these wines and the people, our hosts, were so wonderful. The trip was so thoughtfully planned. There was not a dull moment. They had so many activities planned for us! I was like, I don’t even know what went into organizing this trip of this scale. It was an immersive experience, so immersive and also informative. We had hat making, we had rope swinging, then we had this dinner, a live performance. The next day, we were making our own wines, visiting the winery. There was wild animals, exotic animals. I was like, How do you top this? It was amazing. In the end, while we were coming back to LA, our bus broke down—but the place our bus broke down was this Alice in Wonderland [themed] spot. We had more fun there! It’s like family that you have so much fun with under any circumstance, and then they put together trips which are so exotic. I have no words.
Are there any pieces from your early modeling days that you still have in your closet?
When I was modeling, there was a lot of Indian designers that I didn’t value so much back then because you’re working with them all the time. But now, I value those pieces so much more, especially when I’m living in the West. There’s this southern appreciation for Indian handicrafts and Indian embroideries and Indian artists and people from the east, or artists from the east in every form are doing so well now and getting the mainstream attention that they always should have. I actually value stuff from home so much more. One of the designers then [was] Tarun Tahiliani. I literally started with him as his muse at that time, I was only 16, 17. Sabyasachi is one of the early designers that I worked with in India—he’s so incredible. I work a lot with Falguni Shane [Peacock]. I like to also promote designers from back home, or designers that are Indian, because I started with them and they’re responsible for my career. I also want to promote the culture as much as I can.
Wonderful. What are some of your must-have summer pieces that you can’t live without?
Summer will always remind me of sandals and summer dresses. I can sometimes be a very edgy, grungy, all-black person, but LA summer is so beautiful. It’s all about the beach, and the sundress, and the bikinis, and the sandals. All of that.
What are some pieces that are on your wish list right now?
I don’t know. I don’t think I have any. Fashion was such a big part of my life, but in the last two years, I’ve evolved so much more as an artist, as an actor, as a producer. The fashion thing has taken a bit of a sidestep.
Jessica, Manasvi, Uche, and Katya (Caroline Fiss)
Are there any pieces in your wardrobe that have a special story, or have a deeper meaning for you?
I always reward myself. My mother did that to me—she always bought me something special when I had a significant milestone in my career or there was a special moment. I collect all of those things. Obviously they’re precious, mostly they’re jewelry. I started doing that to myself, 2016 onwards, every time there was something that I thought was incredible that I did. I gifted myself a Rolex watch, I gifted myself a Cartier watch. I remember the first time I bought myself a diamond ring. I do do that to myself a lot. Those pieces I treasure, not just because they’re precious, but also it signifies a moment in my life.
You’re busy producing and traveling right now. What’s next on the horizon in your future?
It took me a while to understand that I’m essentially a storyteller myself. When I make content, I tell stories, [and] I tell stories about brands. Speaking of, I have another video coming about the DAOU estate, about their story and how they’re special. I love telling stories which are informative and entertaining, whether it be content, whether it be through my own journey as an actor or creative, or now, I’m taking taking on a producer’s hat. There’s a story that I’m telling about the Getty kidnapping, which…I don’t even know how universe made it happen, but I have the biggest stars attached to that. Then I have a second movie in development, which is a Hollywood, Bollywood co-production, which actually has never happened—but let’s see if I can make that happen. That’s in development, it’s being written as we speak. The future or my intention would be to just tell interesting stories and provide entertainment and information in these various different ways, different paths that I’ve taken on. I want to continue doing that. That gives me immense satisfaction, to be able to enable other people in telling these beautiful stories.
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