Arvind Swami

Arvind Swami (born 18 June 1970) is an Indian film actor, model, entrepreneur and television presenter known for his work in Tamil cinema.[1][2] He was introduced as an actor by Mani Ratnam with the film Thalapathi (1991) and subsequently starred in successful films such as Roja (1992), Bombay (1995), Minsaara Kanavu (1997) Thani Oruvan (2015), Bogan (2017) and Chekka Chivantha Vaanam (2018).

Arvind Swami
Arvind Swami at the 63rd Filmfare Awards South
Nationality	Indian
Alma mater	Wake Forest University Loyola College, Chennai
Occupation	Film actor, television presenter, entrepreneur, singer, producer
Years active	1991–2006 2013–present
Spouse(s)	Gayathri Ramamurthy ​ ( m. 1994; div. 2010) Aparna Mukherjee ( m. 2012)
Children	2
Parent(s)	V. D. Swami V. S. Vasantha Swami

Swami also starred in other regional film industries, including Telugu and Malayalam films where he has done films such as Mounam (1995), Daddy (1992) and Devaraagam (1996). He has also appeared in Bollywood, making his appearance in Saat Rang Ke Sapne (1998).[3] Swamy spent a decade in businesses ranging from software engineering, construction, international trade to global outsourcing, before returning to act with works such as Kadal (2013), Thani Oruvan (2015), Dear Dad (2016), Dhruva (2016), Bogan (2017) and Chekka Chivantha Vaanam (2018). He briefly worked as a television presenter as the host of the third season of Neengalum Vellalam Oru Kodi (2012–2016) on Star Vijay.

Early life

Swammi's parents are industrialist V. D. Swami and Bharatanatyam dancer C. V. S. Vasantha.[4][5] Swamy studied at the Sishya School and later in Don Bosco Matriculation Higher Secondary School and completed his schooling in 1987. He then graduated from Loyola College, Madras in 1990 with a Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com) degree. He then went to the United States to do his Masters in International Business from Wake Forest University in North Carolina.

Arvind Swami wished to be a doctor. In college, he used to be a model for pocket money.[6] In his Loyola Theatre Society, he wasn't well received and was asked to get off stage. Later on Mani Ratnam saw him in an advertisement and called for a meeting. Then he and Santhosh Sivan introduced him into the basics of film-making.[6]

Career

1991–2006: Early career

Swami made his debut in Mani Ratnam's action drama film, Thalapathi, where he played a young district collector pitted against a don and his own biological brother. Subsequently, Mani Ratnam signed him on to play the lead role in the 1992 political drama film Roja. Roja and Bombay won awards at the State and National Film Award functions. His performance in Bombay was called "soulful" by Time Magazine.[7] Swamy has won several awards, popular and critical, for his films.[7] He has been described as one of the first few actors in India who is able to achieve pan-Indian appeal. In 2005, Swamy provided the Tamil dubbing voice for the adult Simba of Disney's The Lion King (1994).[8] He starred in Rajiv Menon's Minsaara Kanavu alongside Kajol and Prabhu Deva, which won four National Film Awards besides high box office reviews.[9]

He had also acted in director Mahendran's Sasanam in 1999, for NFDC, a low budget ‘arthouse’ Film, without his remuneration only for the experience of working with the director(released 2006),[10]

Swamy retired from acting in 2000 after playing a guest role in Mani Ratnam's Alaipayuthey and concentrated on his business interests.

He was the only actor in India who opposed fans associations.

Swamy was earlier director of V D Swamy and Company and engaged in international trade and construction in the 90s. In 2000, he was the president of InterPro Global and the chairman and managing director of Prolease India, engaged in transaction processing.[7] Swami was in charge of operations and technology for the delivery of many processes across different verticals globally.

He then founded Talent Maximus in 2005, a company engaged in payroll processing and temporary staffing in India.

He had quit films in 2000 and was focussed on growing his businesses. In 2005, he had an accident and injured his spine. He experienced partial paralysis of his leg and suffered in pain for many years. The treatment took another 4–5 years.[6]

2013–present

After his successful treatment, Mani Ratnam called him once more to play a role in one of his films, Kadal (2013)[8] for which Swamy dropped 15 kilograms.[6]

In 2013, he provided the voice-over for Santhosh Sivan's film Ceylon.[11] In 2015, he acted in a now iconic negative role of Sidharth Abhimanyu in Thani Oruvan, for which he was highly praised and received positive reviews and many awards for his acting.

In 2016, he reprised the same role in Telugu in the film Dhruva with Ram Charan, a remake of Thani Oruvan for which he got a lot of appreciation from the Telugu audience. Later in a Hindi movie, Dear Dad (2016).[12]

The popular game show Neengalum Vellalam Oru Kodi recruited Swamy for its third season, which started airing on 30 May 2016.

In 2017, he did the title role of Bogan, co starring Jayam Ravi, for which he again got an outstanding response from the critics and the audience. In 2018, he acted in Bhaskar Oru Rascal. Arvind Swami does a neat job without imitating what Mammootty did in the original.[13] The film is followed by Chekka Chivantha Vaanam (2018). Throughout, the film pretends to be a hunt for that one bad guy among the heroes. The film is released to mostly positive reviews.[14]

Personal life

Swamy married Gayathri Ramamurthy in 1994 and has one daughter Adhira Swami, born in 1996 and a son Rudra Swami, born in 2000. The couple lived separately for seven years until 2010, when they filed for divorce.[15] He is married to Aparna Mukerjee, a lawyer, since 2012. Arvind Swamy was granted custody of his children.[16]

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Language	Notes
1991	Thalapathi	Arjun IAS	Tamil	Credited as Arvind
1992	Roja	Rishi Kumar	Tamil	Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actor
	Daddy	Inspector Anand	Malayalam
1993	Thalattu	Kuzhanthai	Tamil
	Marupadiyum	Gowri Shankar	Tamil
1994	Paasamalargal	Raj	Tamil
	Duet	Himself	Tamil	Cameo appearance
1995	Bombay	Shekhar	Tamil
	Indira	Thiyagu	Tamil
	Mounam	Inspector Kiran	Telugu	Also producer
1996	Devaraagam	Vishnu	Malayalam
1997	Minsaara Kanavu	Thomas	Tamil
	Pudhayal	Koti	Tamil
1998	Saat Rang Ke Sapne	Mahipal	Hindi
1999	En Swasa Katre	Arun	Tamil
2000	Alaipayuthey	Ram IAS	Tamil	Guest appearance
	Raja Ko Rani Se Pyar Ho Gaya	Mohit Kumar	Hindi
2006	Sasanam	Muthiah	Tamil
2013	Kadal	Sam Fernando	Tamil
	Ceylon		English Tamil	Narrator
2015	Thani Oruvan	Dr. Siddharth Abimanyu (Pazhani Sengalvarayan)	Tamil	Edison Award Best Actor in a Negative Role Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor – Tamil IIFA Utsavam Award for Best Performance in a Negative Role
2016	Dear Dad	Nitin Swaminathan	Hindi
	Uriyadi		Tamil	Narrator
	Dhruva	Dr. Siddharth Abhimanyu (Venkanna Chengalarayudu)	Telugu
2017	Bogan	Aadhithya Maravarman (Bogan)	Tamil
2018	Bhaskar Oru Rascal	Bhaskar	Tamil
	Chekka Chivantha Vaanam	Varadharaj	Tamil	Behindwoods Gold Medal – Best Actor in a Negative Role Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor - South Nominated – Filmfare Award for Best Actor - Tamil
2020	Kallapart	Rajapandi	Tamil	Completed
2020	Sathuranga Vettai 2	Gandhi Babu	Tamil	Completed
2020	Vanangamudi		Tamil	Completed
2020	Naragasooran	Dhruva	Tamil	Completed
2020	Pulanaivu		Tamil	filming[17]
2020	Thalaivi	M. G. Ramachandran	Trilingual film (Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu)	filming[18]

Dubbing artiste

• The Lion King (1994; Tamil) for Adult Simba
• Uyire (1998; Tamil) for Shah Rukh Khan
• The Lion King (2019; Tamil) for Scar
• Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy (2019; Tamil) for Chiranjeevi

References

1. "The Arvind Swami interview: Nationalism, GST, demonetisation and more". Thenewsminute.com. Retrieved 30 December 2017.
2. "Mahesh Manjrekar to remake Kaksparsh in Hindi and Tamil with Arvind Swamy and Tisca Chopra – The Times of India". The Times of India.
3. "Arvind Swamy Goes To Bollywood Again". Entertainment.oneindia.in. 27 November 2013. Retrieved 30 December 2017.
4. "Arvind Swamy: I found stardom stifling". The Times of India. Retrieved 30 December 2017.
5. "Arvind Swamy". IMDb. Retrieved 30 December 2017.
6. Kamath, Sudhish (31 January 2013). "Return of the heartthrob". The Hindu. Chennai, India. Archived from the original on 3 February 2013. Retrieved 31 January 2013.
7. "An Actor, and a businessman". The Times of India. 14 November 2002. Retrieved 15 December 2012.
8. "Welcome moviemitra.com". Moviemitra.com. Archived from the original on 10 November 2017. Retrieved 30 December 2017.
9. "Southern Spice: A chat with Arvind Swamy". Gulf News. 30 January 2013. Retrieved 31 January 2013.
10. The Phoenix Rises: Sasanam: Have we lost Mahendran?. Phoenixflicks.blogspot.com (6 August 2006). Retrieved 26 August 2019.
11. "Arvind Swami in Santosh Sivan's 'Ceylon' – The Times of India". The Times of India. 4 June 2013.
12. Dear Dad movie review: Arvind Swamy's father son drama should not be missed! – Bollywood News & Gossip, Movie Reviews, Trailers & Videos at. Bollywoodlife.com (13 May 2016). Retrieved 26 August 2019.
13. Baskar Oru Rascal (aka) Bhaskar Oru Rascal review. Behindwoods.com. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
14. Purushothaman, Kirubhakar (27 September 2018) Chekka Chivantha Vaanam Review: Mani Ratnam demolishes gangster cinema – Movies News. India Today.in. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
15. "Aravind Swamy's 'happy' divorce". Sify. Retrieved 2 December 2010.
16. "Arvind Swamy to pay wife Rs 75 divorce settlement". The Times of India. TNN. 2 December 2010. Retrieved 2 December 2010.
17. Arvind Swami-Santhosh P Jayakumar film titled 'Pulanaivu'. The New Indian Express (19 June 2019). Retrieved 26 August 2019.
18. Much-awaited biopic, Thalaivi commences shoot. Telugu 360 (10 November 2019). Retrieved 11 November 2019.

External links

• Arvind Swamy on IMDb