Act, but make it art

From Selfie Girl to Amrita Sher-Gil, Anjali Sivaraman is becoming the face of rebellious, complex and hard-to-forget women

- Christalle Fernandes

Anjali Sivaraman dreams of playing Catwoman, starring in a One Piece movie, even acting as the unhinged main character in a psychological thriller.

But so far, the 31-year-old actor hasn't done too badly. She’s played an ethical hacker, a gaming prodigy, a small-town rebel, and a rebellious teen maturing into a sober adult.

Sivaraman’s rise has come in bursts and spurts. She started off as an assistant music producer in 2016, and worked her way up from getting cast in ads, to side-hustling as a lead vocalist in the indie Mumbai band, Gloss. She also beat 100 contenders to play the legendary painter Amrita Sher-Gil in Mira Nair’s 2027 biopic, Amri. So, how did she land up here?

Find the light

Sivaraman grew up in a film-loving Tamil family. They'd huddle around the TV, all four of them — dad Vinod, an Indian Air Force pilot; mum Chitra Iyer, a playback singer, and her sister Aditi, who’s now a filmmaker. “My earliest memories are about just watching films and being mesmerised by the drama, romance or action on screen,” Sivaraman recalls. “I was convinced that everything on screen was real, that it was an alternate universe.”