Aaditi Pohankar
Aaditi Pohankar (born 31 December 1994)[1] is an Indian actress who has worked in the Hindi, Marathi and Tamil film industries. After making her acting debut with Love Sex Aur Dhokha (2010), she made a breakthrough with her role along Riteish Deshmukh in Lai Bhaari (2014).[2][3] She achieved fame all over the country after her roles in the 2020 web series She and Aashram.[4]
Aaditi Pohankar was born to Sudhir and Shobha Pohankar. Her father was a former marathon runner, while her mother was a former national level hockey player. Her grandmother Susheela “Tai” Pohankar was a classical vocalist of Kirana Gharana, while classical vocalist Ajay Pohankar is her uncle. Abhijit Pohankar is her cousin.[1] While in school, she represented Maharashtra in the sport of athletics and won medals in 100 metres and 200 metres races.[5]
As an aspiring theatre actress, Aaditi became acquainted with Satyadev Dubey in 2010, who asked actor Makarand Deshpande to mentor her career as a performer in stage plays in Mumbai.[2] She simultaneously tried for acting roles in films and made her film debut with a small role in the Hindi anthology film Love Sex Aur Dhokha (2010). Aaditi then worked on Rekha Saray’s Marathi film, Kunasathi Kunitari (2011), alongside actors Ashok Saraf, Smita Jaykar and Poonam Dhillon. In 2012, Aaditi appeared in Malayalam film directed by M. S. Anil and had briefly moved to Kerala to learn the language, before the project was stalled.[6][7]
Aaditi was spotted by director Nishikant Kamat when he saw Makarand’s play Time Boy in Mumbai, where the actress starred as a seven-year-old boy.[2] Kamat made Aaditi go through two days of screen tests for a role in his Marathi film Lai Bhaari (2014) and cast her opposite Riteish Deshmukh after being impressed with her temperament. Aaditi revealed that during the shoot, Kamat gave her the liberty to do what she wanted as an actress and to get into her character, she visualized herself as “an evil person”.[2] Lai Bhaari opened to positive reviews, with Aaditi’s villainous character of Nandhini drawing critical acclaim.[8][9] The film went on to become the most profitable Marathi film of all time upon release.[10]
In late 2016, Aaditi Pohankar made a return to acting after a brief sabbatical by signing Tamil films. She starred alongside Atharvaa in the 2017 film Gemini Ganeshanum Suruli Raajanum.[11] Aaditi then signed Selvaraghavan’s romantic drama film Mannavan Vanthanadi, opposite Santhanam. The project has been delayed since 2017.[12][13]
In 2018, she got in touch with Imtiaz Ali at the screening of his brother’s film, Laila Majnu, and requested him to check her showreel on Vimeo, which he eventually did. He then offered her an audition for She, playing a Police Constable used as a honeytrap. She was requested to perform the opening scene of the series, in which she is not chosen among the prostitutes in a brothel and acts sassy to get the target’s attention. During the course of the shooting, she had tolearn to get comfortable with the explicit nature of her role. The series released on Netflix in 2020.[5]
Later in 2020, she starred in Aashram, playing the role of a young wrestler who is attracted to the seemingly democratic setup of the ashram, upon learning that her being a Dalit is keeping her from success due to casteism.[14][15] For this role, she was trained by wrestler Sangram Singh.[16]
