Arunoday Singh

Singh is the grandson of Arjun Singh, an Indian politician who was the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh and Human Resource Minister in Govt of India, and son of Ajay Singh (Rahul bhaiya) leader of opposition in Madhya Pradesh State assembly.^[1]

He is an alumnus of Brandeis University,^[2] having previously been educated at a boarding school in Kodaikanal, where he performed in school plays. According to him, it was after watching actor Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront (1954) that he decided to become an actor. After his graduation, he did a few courses in the New York Film Academy, and thereafter enrolled in the Acting Studio in New York, during the period he also performed in plays.^[3][4]

After finishing his studies he started giving auditions, and finally made his debut with Sikandar (2009), directed by Piyush Jha, playing a Kashmiri terrorist.^[4] His second film was the ensemble romantic comedy-drama Aisha (2010), an adaptation of the novel Emma by Jane Austen directed by Rajshree Ojha, co-starring Sonam Kapoor, Abhay Deol, Ira Dubey, Cyrus Sahukar, Amrita Puri, Anand Tiwari and Lisa Haydon; he portrayed Dhruv Singh, a flirtatious playboy.^[2] Also in the same year, he appeared in Vinay Shukla's take on gender and sexuality in Mirch, through a collage of five stories, with Konkana Sen Sharma, Raima Sen, where he played the central character of a struggling film director.

In 2011, he acted alongside Irrfan Khan and Aditi Rao Hydari, another newcomer in Sudhir Mishra's Yeh Saali Zindagi (2011). His performance earned him a nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role at the 18th Screen Awards. He next appeared in Jism 2 opposite Sunny Leone and Randeep Hooda. In 2014 he appeared in David Dhawan's comedy film Main Tera Hero opposite Varun Dhawan, Ileana D'Cruz and Nargis Fakhri; and the supernatural thriller film Pizza. His next release was Mr. X as Dr. Steve Rhodes opposite Emraan Hashmi and Amyra Dastur. In 2016, Singh appeared in Ashutosh Gowariker's epic-adventure romance film Mohenjo Daro, alongside Hrithik Roshan and Pooja Hegde.

Singh has identified with Sufism, saying that "no other religion speaks to me like Sufism does."^[5]

Singh is a visual artist as well a poet, a collection of his English poetry was published in book form in 2023, Unsung, by Penguin Random House India.^[6]

On 13 December 2016, he married LeeAnn Elton, who he met three years previously in Goa. Lee owns a cafe in Goa.^[7] They divorced in 2019.^[8]