Mumbai: Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra is a prominent name in Hollywood today, but the journey from Bollywood to global cinema wasn’t a cakewalk.
On the occasion of International Women’s Day, an earlier interview of Priyanka resurfaced, in which the actress shared how she was rejected for a Hollywood project because of the prevailing facets of intersectionality.
“I was asked to not be a part of a movie because I was too ethnic.” Priyanka shared during an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival 2017.
“First of all, everyone has an ethnicity. Even Caucasian is an ethnicity. But, I was too ethnic for the part, and it was a mainstream American part. So I remember my agent being extremely like, he didn’t know how to tell me that. And he was being really, you know, skirting around the issue. And I said to him, I was like, ‘Brad, just, just tell me’ and he was like ‘Priyanka, I don’t know how to… I don’t know how to say that in 2017, that this was actually a reason’,” she elaborated.
“They could at least make up a reason, saying she didn’t… don’t be so on the nose about it! And but they said, the reasoning that was given was that, you know, we’ll have to explain how an Indian girl is, you know, is this character in mainstream, like we’ll have to explain where her parents came from. And what was she doing in America?” she added.
However, the actress firmly said that she and her colleagues’ will ensure that the future generation of actors doesn’t have to go through this ordeal.
“And you know, I didn’t realise that’s how hard it was until I came here and now, I’ve really taken it very personally. And whether it happens for me or it doesn’t, but I really do hope for the future generation that they don’t have to deal with this because of what me and my colleagues will do” she said.
Watch the interview here:
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Meanwhile, on the work front, Priyanka will next be seen in the ‘Heads of State and The Bluff.’ She has also started shooting for SS Rajamouli’s upcoming project with Mahesh Babu.
