The first glimpse we get of Priyanka Chopra in the recently-released Netflix comedy, Isn’t it Romantic, is on a billboard advertisement for Pantene. Posing in a one-piece swimsuit, she is the kind of jaw-dropping beauty that the film’s lead, Rebel Wilson, wishes to be. Her character, Isabella, describes herself as a ‘yoga ambassador, super model, and role model’.
Chopra is not the film’s lead, nor has her performance garnered much critical acclaim, but her role is still a big deal. “To have an Indian girl play the ideal beauty in an American rom-com is not something that’s stereotypically seen,” explains the actor, who is back in India for the first time since she got married to singer-songwriter Nick Jonas in December. “It’s usually a blue-eyed, blonde girl.”
Even as a newcomer in the American entertainment industry (her first acting role was with the ABC series, Quantico, in 2015), she was keen to transcend her Indianness. Not that she wanted to ignore it (she will, after all, be playing the notorious Ma Anand Sheela, former spokesperson of the Osho movement, in an upcoming adaptation) but because she thought it might limit her scope of work. “I really believe that going beyond ethnicity is the only way to create diversity in global entertainment,” she says.
But how does she continue to pull it all off, and negotiate the kind of stardom that she has created for herself? With homes in both America and India, a career that spans two mammoth film industries, a production company that promotes regional Indian cinema, an upcoming memoir, and multiple red carpet appearances (not to mention photo ops with Kim Kardashian West and a prolific talk show circuit), PC is busy.
“It’s really simple,” she says. “If I want to straddle Hollywood and Bollywood, India and America, I have to take 500 flights a year. I have to not complain about jet lag. I have to make sure my schedule and choices work according to the ambition that I have, of where I want to get.”
Crafting her dream
Film journalist and writer Aseem Chhabra, who wrote Priyanka Chopra: The Incredible Story of a Global Bollywood Star, an unauthorised biography, finds this can-do attitude a unique trait. “No other Indian actor has had such a fascinating professional life. My research showed a unique path that only Priyanka had followed. And apart from all that, she works very hard — harder than any Bollywood star I can think of.”
Basically, she does the things that she dreams about doing, even if she claims to be someone who has never planned her life. “I create opportunities,” she says, and weirdly enough, it doesn’t sound like she’s bragging.
Even without a lot of critical success in Hollywood (with Quantico, Baywatch and A Kid like Jake), she’s somehow managed to make it work. “When it comes to the global corridors of cinema — Los Angeles, New York, London — there’s nobody who’s not aware of Priyanka,” says Shahnaab Alam, who, along with Chopra’s production house, Purple Pebbles, produced the 2018 Assamese film, Bhoga Khirikee.
It didn’t always look like that would be the case. Writing for The New York Times in 2014, LA-based writer-editor Sheila Marikar said, “While Ms Chopra is one of India’s biggest stars, she can eat lunch on a busy sidewalk and not be approached by a single selfie-seeking fan.” She also predicted, “This may be about to change, though.”
- “I’m a big champion of Rebel [Wilson],” says Chopra, about her Australian co-star who plays the lead in Isn’t it Romantic? “I’m always a champion of women who take charge of their own lives, and Rebel has done exactly that. It’s her first leading part after being an actor for over 15 years.” The film, which also stars Liam Hemsworth, tells the story of Wilson’s character who wakes up in a new world — one of romantic comedies — after being mugged at a subway station.
She was right. A talent-holding deal with ABC Studios led to Quantico, the 2015 series which made Chopra the first South Asian to lead an American network drama series. “Her music career in the US (which started in 2012 with her debut single ‘In My City’, followed by ‘Exotic’ the next year, with rapper Pitbull) didn’t take off, but ABC invested huge sums of money to connect Priyanka’s face with the show,” says Chhabra.
Promotional posters were plastered across the country — in subway stations and on billboards — and even though the show was cancelled after three seasons, the actor from Bareilly had become a star in the West.
Fearless, and proud of it
She is known to travel with an entourage, and joked in a New York Times interview that “when we walk into a room, it’s like Ocean’s Twelve”.
Her strong team of supporters and staff include Anjula Acharia-Bath, a venture capitalist and celebrity manager, who paved the way for Chopra, emphasising her star value to brands, production houses and studio networks who were not too familiar with her work in Bollywood.
Cut to 2019, and she is making headlines not just for her work, but also for her high-profile marriage. And the trolls have not been kind. The Internet was flooded with memes poking fun of the age gap (she is almost 10 years older to Jonas), her wedding trousseau, and her accent. She sighs when I bring it up. “Criticism has been my constant companion. Of course, I get affected. When I read people writing random stuff online, for no reason, instead of encouraging my work, or the fearless choices I have made, which a lot of people haven’t had the courage to do, I’m hurt.” She’s used to it however, she says, in a resigned tone. “My parents raised me with enough self-assurance and self-confidence to know that I don’t need validation from the world to be okay with who I am.”
- ‘Nickyanka’ is back in town to attend the engagement of the actor’s brother. PC’s own roka was an intimate affair, held at her Juhu residence last August. With just a week to go, the couple had reached out to Shaadi Squad, the wedding planners who’d pulled off the hush-hush #Virushka nuptials in Italy.
- Even though a large part of the coordination was done with the bride’s team and mother, co-founder Tina Tharwani comments on how focussed Chopra was. “When you get 10 minutes with her, you get all 10. It’s very important to be able to take quick decisions because she’s busy, and we were amazed by how quick she is at it.”
She is also, she admits, at a precipice in her life. “I’m trying to figure out where I’m going next. My life has dramatically changed since I got married. I don’t know what the end game is.”
But she is unabashed about her ambition. Even though it’s been three years since she’s graced the big screens of Bollywood (with Prakash Jha’s 2016 crime drama, Jai Gangajaal), she’s stayed in touch with her fans through social media. Later this year, she will return with Shonali Bose’s The Sky is Pink, alongside Farhan Akhtar. There’s her production company, her tech investments (including in dating app, Bumble), and a YouTube original show called If I Could Tell You One Thing.
There’s also a memoir that she was supposed to write last year, but couldn’t finish, because, well, #Nickyanka. She started in January and calls the process ‘cathartic’. “There’s so much of my life that’s been documented, so many things I’ve said to you guys over the years,” she laughs. “But my memoir is going to be about life in between the interviews. It’s taking me down to dark places, my fears and vulnerabilities. These are things I’ve never really publicly spoken about, because as a woman, I always thought that I had to have a really tough exterior to break through the walls that I wanted to break through.”
And just like her life, the memoir is titled Unfinished. There’s yet more to come, she promises.
Isn’t it Romantic is streaming currently on Netflix.