He began his acting career at age four and has since appeared on stage, in feature films and television programs.

As an actor, he has worked with Academy Award winners Oliver Stone, Gene Hackman, Kevin Costner, Jamie Foxx, Tatum O'Neil, Kim Hunter, Billy Bob Thornton, Denzel Washington, Ellen Burstyn and Sissy Spacek, and has appeared on stage with Sir Kenneth Branagh, Ben Kingsley, and Rosemary Harris, as well as Alec Baldwin and Elizabeth Ashley in Tennessee Williams's classic The Night of the Iguana.

In 1997, American Theatre Magazine hailed Arata's performance of Stanley Kowalski in the 50th anniversary production of Tennessee Williams' classic A Streetcar Named Desire as "unhinged and electrifying", and reviewer Dalt Wonk called the performance "a Stanley for our times".

Since then, Arata has produced documentaries ("The People's Story" on the devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch in Central America winner of the Houston International Film Festival and Telluride Independent Film Festival; Shaolm Y'all, discussing southern Jewish culture, winner of The Sidewalk Moving Pictures Festival), and more recently several feature films, including "Deal", starring Burt Reynolds, "The Shooting Gallery", starring Freddie Prinze Jr. and Ving Rhames, "Home Front" starring Academy Award winner Tatum O'Neal, and "New Orleans Mon Amour", starring Christopher Eccleston.

In 2002, he help draft the successful Louisiana Motion Picture Incentive Act, and was asked by Governor Murphy J.