Indian actor Sheena Chauhan, who made her Hindi feature film debut with the biopic Sant Tukaram earlier this year, has been cast as the lead in Arjunanin Arilani, a Tamil drama about folk artists and caste discrimination.
The film is written by renowned Tamil writer B. Jeyamohan, directed by Vino Vikraman Pillai (‘Kafir’) and features music by legendary composer Ilaiyaraaja. The project marks Chohan’s entry into Tamil cinema after appearing in Malayalam, Hindi and international productions.
“Arjunanin Arilani” follows two impoverished artists, a folk dance performer and a Dalit singer, whose relationship forms the center of the story. The story follows a female protagonist as she overcomes a family tragedy and ultimately seeks justice through art.
Produced by Irrfan Khan of EBG Films, the film sees Chohan playing Rani, a character who spans four different stages of life, from teenagers to middle age. The role requires extensive martial arts training, including Chirambattam, a traditional Tamil stick-fighting technique.
“Rani is a young woman who spends her formative years devotedly singing hymns to God in temples,” Pillai told Variety. “Starting with the exuberance and innocence of her twenties, her life unfolds in four distinct stages, tracing her journey from adolescence to middle age. To faithfully portray this evolution, the actress playing the role must master martial arts, including Chirambattam. As the story moves through different eras, the character undergoes significant changes, both physically and emotionally, and the actress must adapt her appearance and presence accordingly.”
The director says Chohan’s casting was “completely coincidental.” “From our first conversation, I was struck by her deep passion and dedication to her art,” he says. “When I shared Ali Lani’s story, she expressed a genuine and immediate interest. Lani’s character is a strong, resilient woman whose journey takes her from her teens to middle age. The role also requires extensive martial arts sequences, and Sheena is well-suited to this challenge given her years of martial arts training and experience.”
For Chohan, this role aligns with her long-standing commitment to socially grounded materials. “I had a lot of training in theater and acting, but it would be a waste to play a flat character,” she told Variety magazine. “Also, if your acting skills are well-honed, you can and should give depth to characters that seem monotonous. Of course, the most important thing is to give the director a blank slate and give them what they want in the story, but no real person is shallow and morally simple. So I don’t like any characters to be that way.”
Chohan, who serves as United for Human Rights South Asia ambassador, added that her advocacy for human rights directly influenced her project selection. “I turn down so many films because of derogatory or degrading roles,” she says. “But the good news is that the industry is changing, thanks to the incredible work of women like the Women’s Collective of Kerala, and the hard work of women and men across the country fighting against discrimination. New characters and stories are being written that show women are not just pretty Christmas tree decorations, but equal citizens, real living, breathing, thinking human beings.”
Chohan’s recent works include Aditya Om’s ‘Santo Tukaram’ in which he portrayed Avali Jijabai opposite the title character in the Hindi biopic. The film was widely praised for showing her quiet power and emotional depth. She explains that her acting approach is rooted in thorough character study and techniques developed during intensive training at the Los Angeles Acting Center during the production of the Hollywood film Nomad.
“What I learned was how to develop a character both overall and in terms of understanding their inner thoughts and motivations in each scene,” she says. “So while reading and watching everything related to Avari Jijabai, including reading original historical documents from the 17th century and working and eating with the village women who still work in the fields where Avari worked, I used all the information I gathered to really understand her character and apply it to her personality. My reaction was natural.”
Reflecting on his debut film in Hindi, Chohan points out the importance of the film being screened in multiple theaters in his home base of Mumbai. “After five years of acting in Kolkata and training in crafts, martial arts and dance, I moved to Mumbai and based there, I worked across India in various languages with legendary local and international directors,” she says. “But living in Mumbai, it was very special to see Sant Tukaram play in theaters here and get a national release. With my friends and colleagues joining me in Mumbai, it felt like the national premiere had arrived. But creatively, it was never a reset, it was a continuation.”
The actor has also completed director JD Chakravarthy’s pan-Indian thriller ‘Jatasya Maranam Dhrvam’ in which he plays a police officer. “I literally followed the dangerous work and home life of a female police officer. I put a lot of effort into getting inside the character’s head, and I can only think that what I brought to the character gave the director the insight he so desperately needed, even in such a dark and complex thriller,” she says.
Her upcoming plans include the VFX-heavy streaming series ‘Bhaayava’ in which she plays Lilith. The platform is not yet locked as the production team completes extensive visual effects work. “I went from playing a saint’s wife to a devil, and perhaps that’s what made me take up the role. It was so different. I went from the simplest scenes in a field where I’ve been working in a sari for a thousand years to being put on a prosthetic leg for five hours in front of one of the biggest green screens in Mumbai, and then being thrown out of a car in a harness for a flying scene,” she says. “But again, this character was so rich. Lilith was Adam’s first wife in the Bible. She was ruled by Adam and banished from Eden for refusing to obey his every word. So it was a character I had to take seriously.”
Chohan’s international credits include Mostfa Sarwar Farooqui’s ‘Ali Story’ (2013), which was screened at the Shanghai International Film Festival and the Dubai International Film Festival. She also co-starred with Madhuri Dixit in the Netflix series ‘The Fame Game’ (2022) and with Kajol in the JioHotstar show ‘The Trial’ (2023).
Her career began with her debut opposite Mammootty in Jayaraj’s Malayalam film The Train (2011). Reflecting on her work with big-name actors like Mammootty, Dixit and Kajol, Chohan looks at how different directors have shaped her approach. “Acting in India has changed a lot since I took over Mammootty. What director Jayaraj wanted in terms of restraint on the sets of ‘The Train’ was the complete opposite of what Suparn Varma wanted on the sets of ‘The Trial,'” she says. “For Jayaraj, I was more expressive, but for Suparn, I had to do a lot of character research to keep it subtle and to get into her mind and become my character without ‘acting’. What I learned from these legends in terms of command and screen presence ties into professionalism in many ways. They’re actually there doing what they’re doing while they’re doing it. ”
Chohan talks about balancing broad reach through a big platform with the role of leaving a lasting cultural impact. “What I care about most is the characters and the story, that’s the most important thing, but of course the dream is to have rich, nuanced characters in a well-told, original, larger-than-life, grounded story that reaches the whole world. And I want to make that dream come true.”
