He made his debut as a director in the Netflix anthology series Navarasa (2021) in which his segment was named Project Agni(Adbhutha-Wonder).

[5] He briefly worked as a television presenter as the host of the third season of Neengalum Vellalam Oru Kodi (2012–2016) on Star Vijay.

[11] Swamy made his debut in Mani Ratnam's action drama film, Thalapathi (1991), where he played a young district collector pitted against a don and his own biological brother.

He starred in Rajiv Menon's Minsaara Kanavu alongside Kajol and Prabhu Deva, which won four National Film Awards besides high box office reviews.

[14] During the making of the film, Arvind Swami was critical of Menon changing the script to prioritise Prabhu Deva's role.

Three of his Tamil films, Gandhi Krishna's Engineer, Azhagam Perumal's Mudhal Mudhalaaga and Mahendran's Sasanam were all stalled after completing a few production schedules.

[15] His final two releases before his sabbatical, En Swasa Kaatre (1999) and Raja Ko Rani Se Pyar Ho Gaya (2000) also took several years to complete, with long delays during the production phase.

[16] Swamy eventually stopped acting in films post-2000, after playing a guest role in Mani Ratnam's Alaipayuthey, and opted to concentrate on his business interests.

[11] After his successful treatment, Mani Ratnam called him once more to play a role in one of his films, Kadal (2013)[13] for which Swamy dropped 15 kilograms.

[18] In 2015, he played the iconic negative role of Sidharth Abhimanyu in Thani Oruvan, for which he was highly praised and received positive reviews and many awards.

[29][30] In 2023, Custody is a Tamil and Telugu bilingual film and it stars Naga Chaitanya and Krithi Shetty in lead roles along with Arvind Swamy.

[32] In the late 2010s, several of Arvind Swamy's films were delayed or shelved as a result of production troubles and the actor's insistence to have his salary settled.

Production on Sathuranga Vettai 2 began in July 2016, but remains unreleased following a payment dispute with the film's producer Manobala.

[35][36] Other projects such as the Hindi-Tamil bilingual remake of Marathi film Kaksparsh and Santhosh Jayakumar's Pulanaivu were shelved despite entering production.