Priyanka Chopra shares that she felt terrible about starring in a fairness product commercial.
A lot has been said and written about celebrities promoting fairness creams. The debate took flight with Abhay Deol calling out Bollywood actors like Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, Sonam Kapoor, Vidya Balan and John Abraham among others for endorsing brands that sell skin lightening products. The Dev D actor pointed out how the Bollywood A-listers who have immense fan following doesn’t find anything wrong in endorsing racism promoting products. But one name he missed on completely was Priyanka Chopra. No worries, the Quantico actor herself feels terrible about it.
In her recent interview with fashion magazine Vogue, Priyanka recalled how she regrets featuring in the commercial of a skin lightening product. “A lot of girls with a darker skin hear things like, ‘Oh, poor thing, she’s dark.’ In India, they advertise skin-lightening creams: ‘Your skin’s gonna get lighter in a week.’ I used it when I was very young. Then when I was an actor, around my early twenties, I did a commercial for a skin-lightening cream. I was playing that girl with insecurities. And when I saw it, I was like, “Oh shit. What did I do?” I started talking about being proud of the way I looked. I actually like my skin tone,” said Priyanka in the interview.
Recently, Priyanka shot for the cover of Vogues’s September edition and was seen wearing a bold and sensual haute couture. The beauty also became the face of Paper Magazine, based out of New York. Sharing a click from the photoshoot, Priyanka wrote, “I love my job, because giving a character life is nothing short of exhilarating…even in a photo shoot. It fuels me. Bringing one of my alter egos to life (there are several, FYI) for @papermagazine was awesome. Excited for you to meet her…I call her, Scarlett. #just #BeautifulPeople.”
PeeCee has proved herself in Hollywood with her strong roles of Alex Parrish in Quantico and antagonist Victoria Leeds in Baywatch but the actor reveals that she was once denied a role for her ethnic looks. Speaking on the sidelines of Toronto Film Festival, Priyanka said, “When the opportunity came my way, I saw it as an opportunity to break the ceiling for actors that look like me… Once I was asked not to be a part of a cast because I was too ethnic… I didn’t realize how hard it was until I came to North America.”
Priyanka has taken her Sikkimese production Pahuna to the international film festival with her mother Madhu Chopra. There the Indian global star shared her journey from Bollywood to Hollywood and other details of her life with the artistic director of TIFF, Cameron Bailey.
Here are the snippets of their conversation which were shared on the Twitter handle of Toronto International Film Festival:
“My role in Quantico was not written for an Indian girl,” she said, also adding, “I’ve had people take away films from me because I might not have agreed with them.”
.@priyankachopra, one of the few actors to become an enormous ⭐ in both Hollywood and Bollywood, on fighting for equality. #ShareHerJourney pic.twitter.com/BiR2XvveGx
— TIFF (@TIFF_NET) September 7, 2017
“It’s not easy – when you come into entertainment being a woman. You’ve got to pull your socks up for a fight,” Priyanka told Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) on the red carpet.
“No one’s going to hand it out to you, whether it’s credit, whether it’s parts, whether it is the ability to make movies,” she said, pointing to Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins, the first female director for a studio superhero movie.
One of the 🌎’s most celebrated activists + artists, @priyankachopra — a #ShareHerJourney ambassador — joins us tonight for #TIFFSoiree. pic.twitter.com/sauhnWg72h
— TIFF (@TIFF_NET) September 6, 2017
.@priyankachopra on standing her ground and not settling for less… #LifeGoals #PCAtTIFF #GuestOfHonor #TIFFSoiree #ShareHerJourney #TIFF17 pic.twitter.com/FpYZaslYvH
— Team Priyanka Chopra (@TeamPriyanka) September 7, 2017
“You can understand how hard and few and far between these opportunities are. But it’s got to take people like us to stand out there, dig our heels in and say we’re not going to stand for it anymore,” said the National Award-winning actress, who even took home the People’s Choice Award in 2016 for her role in Quantico.
(with inputs from IANS)
