Priyanka Chopra Jonas is set to star as Ma Anand Sheela in Amazon Studios’ movie Sheela. Ma Anand Sheela, who was made famous by Netflix’s docuseries Wild Wild Country, was the personal secretary of Osho from 1981-1985 and she managed the Rajneeshpuram ashram in Wasco County, Oregon.
She was a spiritual adviser and the primary perpetrator of the 1984 Rajneesh bioterror attack in Oregon.
Post the attack she fled to Europe as a fugitive accused of arson, wiretapping, attempted murder, and mass poisonings. She would plead guilty to attempted murder and assault for her role and was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison and paroled after 39 months.
Rain Man director Barry Levinson will helm Sheela, which will be produced by Priyanka’s Purple Pebble Pictures, along with Levinson’s Baltimore Pictures and Permut Presentations’ David Permut and Jason Sosnoff. Meanwhile, Priyanka is also set to star in The Matrix reboot and headline the Netflix films We Can Be Heroes and Ramin Bahrani-directed The White Tiger.